0:00:04 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of
0:00:08 The Tim Ferriss Show, where for more than a decade, it has been my job to deconstruct world-class
0:00:14 performers from different disciplines, all different disciplines, to tease out the frameworks,
0:00:21 the favorite books, the routines, and in this case, the word-for-word scripts that you can apply
0:00:26 to your own lives. My guest today is Dr. Becky Kennedy. She is the founder and CEO of Good Inside,
0:00:31 a parenting movement with members in more than 100 countries that overturns a lot of conventional
0:00:37 modern parenting advice to actually empower parents to become sturdy, confident leaders.
0:00:41 We’ll explain what that means and raise sturdy, confident kids. Of course, there are a million
0:00:47 people out there giving parenting advice, and Dr. Becky Kennedy’s advice, her thinking on this,
0:00:53 has resonated incredibly well with me, and that is why for years I’ve wanted to have her on. She
0:00:59 is the author of the number one best-selling book by the same name, Good Inside, a chart-topping podcast,
0:01:03 Good Inside with Becky. You can see the theme here, a TED Talk with nearly four million views
0:01:08 on the power of repair. We’ll discuss what that means and what it looks like in an upcoming
0:01:14 children’s book, That’s My Truck, a Good Inside story about hitting. Maybe I could use that too.
0:01:19 You can find her online at goodinside.com and on Instagram @drbecky@goodinside.
0:01:23 And now, just a few quick words from the people who make this podcast possible.
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0:06:41 learn more at drinkag1.com/tim. Let’s start with what popped into my
0:06:47 head. And we’ll just keep rolling with that thread and see if it goes. We’re interesting.
0:06:51 If it’s a dead end, I’ll get us out of the dead end. But I want to talk, perhaps, about your
0:06:57 TED Talk on the power of repair. Why do you think this struck a chord with people
0:07:03 and what resonated with people from that? A classic example is you yell at your kid for
0:07:07 something, right? So I’ll use this example, which is different than the one in my TED Talk,
0:07:14 because it also leads to some common questions. So my kid’s stalling in the morning. I got to
0:07:18 get my kid to school, because also when I drop my kid at school, I have to get to work. And my
0:07:22 kid’s late, I’m late. The whole thing were also rushed. And my kid is saying, I don’t know whatever
0:07:26 they’re saying, I’m not going to school today. You can’t make me go to school. I’m not putting on
0:07:30 my shoes. You put on my shoes and you’re thinking, I have an eight-year-old, like they put on their
0:07:36 shoes, right? And then we get to some crescendo moment where as a parent, and I’ll say me myself,
0:07:41 because I have this too, I just yell, scream at my kid. What is wrong with you? You don’t do
0:07:46 anything. You’re eight years old. You’re never going to amount to anything in your life. You can’t
0:07:52 put on your shoes. You’re so selfish. You’re going to make me late. You turn me into a monster.
0:07:57 Why can’t you listen the first time? We say this thing, depending on our kid’s temperament,
0:08:02 they react in different ways. If they’re kind of in the more people-pleasing type that immediately
0:08:07 stops them, they’re like, oh no, my parents mad at me. I’m going to be good, mostly just because
0:08:13 I really need to see that they reflect that I’m a good kid. I need that. If you have another
0:08:17 temperament kid, they use this as a way of like, oh, you want to fight? I’ll show you a fight.
0:08:21 And they’re like, I am not putting on my shoes. That was me. Right. That is my third kid. Love him.
0:08:31 What order are you? I’m first. You’re first. But I was a pretty defiant little kid at points.
0:08:35 And so then you get through the moment. You get through it. And then I think after drop-off,
0:08:40 there’s this immense heaviness as a parent. And you’re cycling through different things that,
0:08:45 again, whatever your voice is, might be your own voice, or it’s probably the voice you’ve
0:08:49 internalized from your own upbringing in terms of how people would have responded to you
0:08:54 if you were your kid in that moment. But it’s some version of blame. It’s either blame in
0:08:58 or blame out. It’s either I’m an awful parent. Why can’t I stay calm? And why can’t I just get
0:09:02 through the morning? And then that usually cycles with I have an awful kid and my kids a sociopath
0:09:05 and they’re going to go to jail and they’re never going to mount to anything. And either way,
0:09:12 you’re blaming where repair would be saying to your kid at some point, hey, I screamed at you
0:09:17 earlier. That probably felt scary. And this will be the kind of maybe the start of something
0:09:23 controversial. It’s never your fault when I yell. And I’m working on staying calmer. So even when
0:09:28 I’m frustrated, I can use a calmer voice like I’m sorry. That would be a repair. I’m kind of going
0:09:34 back to a moment that felt bad, kind of like reopening that part of the chapter. I’m taking
0:09:39 responsibility for my behavior. I’m giving my kid a story to understand what happened.
0:09:44 And I’m kind of talking about what I would do differently the next time.
0:09:50 All right. This is great grist for the mill. And part of the reason we talked about this a little
0:09:55 bit before recording that I was excited to have you on and have a conversation is that
0:10:02 the tools you’re talking about really apply everywhere. And they’re echoed by a lot of
0:10:09 folks people would not necessarily associate with parenting like Jaco Willink, Navy Seal Commander,
0:10:13 Extreme Ownership. And there are many other examples that I could give where
0:10:21 I feel like what we will discuss in our conversation can be applied many different places,
0:10:29 many different dojos for very similar tools and tool kits. With that said, I suspect one line
0:10:34 where people maybe got stuck and you know exactly what I’m going to say is it’s never your fault
0:10:41 when I yell at you. All right. Part of me loves that because just to invoke the great name of Jaco
0:10:46 again, who did his first ever podcast, first ever interview on this podcast 100 years ago.
0:10:54 When you own things, you give yourself a degree of agency. Yes. Right. But also overly blaming
0:10:58 yourself can be the flip side of maybe taking on excessive responsibility for other people’s
0:11:05 actions and feelings and so on, meaning sort of codependent or otherwise. So I heard everything
0:11:10 you said, but I suppose like some listeners, I was like always never, these absolutes are very
0:11:19 strong words. Why say that particular line? And when I share a script to me, it’s often words
0:11:24 that are representative of kind of principles. I never like to get too stuck on words. I actually
0:11:27 gave those words an example in part because I think it does bring up a lot of questions,
0:11:31 but I never want someone to hear this and think, okay, I got to write down that exact word. In
0:11:35 general, take responsibility for your actions, give your kid a story, say what you do differently
0:11:38 the next time. And I actually would hope anyone listening would say, I think I have my own brand
0:11:42 of that. Amazing. That’s better for you and your kid than my brand. So with that in mind,
0:11:47 it’s never your fault when I yell. Here’s why I think that’s powerful, even if you don’t say it,
0:11:55 to discuss and really think about. The way we react to our kid, yes, has to do with the situation
0:12:01 in front of us, but we actually react to the set of feelings in our own body combined with
0:12:08 the circuitry we have to manage those feelings. And I think the biggest thing to think about is
0:12:15 that circuitry, those skills we have to manage emotions literally predated our kid’s existence.
0:12:24 That was there so far before them. Now, when my kid doesn’t listen and the morning is delayed,
0:12:28 I feel frustrated. And that feeling is definitely co-created with my kid.
0:12:35 Separating frustration from my ability to manage the frustration are two really different things.
0:12:40 And telling a kid, basically, you make me yell, you turn me into a monster,
0:12:46 is actually holding your kid responsible for your set of skills to manage your feelings.
0:12:50 And the other reason, and then I’ll be quiet for right now, that I think it’s so powerful
0:12:54 is I think about my son. I don’t know, it could be my daughter, whatever, he’s married one day,
0:12:59 let’s say, and he has some partner and I don’t need a really bad day at work. And he comes home
0:13:05 and for some reason, I’m at his house visiting and his partner is like, “Oh, man, I forgot to get
0:13:09 toilet paper from the store.” And then he sits down for dinner and maybe his partner ordered
0:13:16 him the wrong thing. I don’t know, he yells at her. And I hear him saying, “Well, if you just got
0:13:21 toilet paper and ordered me the right thing, I wouldn’t be yelling at you.” And I picture the
0:13:24 cringe moment, “Oh, my God, that’s like the creepiest thing.” Like seriously?
0:13:26 And then you’re like, “Did I install that software?”
0:13:30 And then we hear ourselves say to our kids all the time, “If you just listened the first time,
0:13:35 I wouldn’t have yelled.” Or like, “Okay, well, if you were just calmly playing with your sister,
0:13:42 then you wouldn’t get this reaction from me.” And if that creeps us out down the line, like if we
0:13:47 wouldn’t say, “I would be so proud to hear my kids say that to a partner,” then I don’t know
0:13:50 why we think that’s a good idea to say to our kids when they’re young.
0:13:53 So there are many different branches off of this that we could explore.
0:14:01 Let’s maybe back up or zoom out. Choose your favorite metaphor. And perhaps you could just
0:14:09 in your, I suppose, framework or worldview what it means to be a good parent. Could you
0:14:15 define this or just speak to that? And then we can use that as a sort of a foundation
0:14:17 from which we can launch into a bunch of other stuff.
0:14:22 Yeah. I should have a really solid answer to that question by now, but I…
0:14:23 Fortunately, we have a lot of time.
0:14:28 Okay. Maybe part of what I struggle with is I think we probably think about that word
0:14:32 or that term “good parent” is like what I’m doing on the surface is something observable,
0:14:37 or I think a core principle that I think about is actually separating kind of who you are in
0:14:42 terms of your identity, which is not observable from what you do in your actions, which usually is
0:14:48 observable, separating those two. I mean, but I think a good parent probably sees parenting
0:14:54 as a journey of self-growth and discovery as much as they see it about anything related to
0:15:00 your kid’s growth. So I think that’s number one. Number two, I think a good parent
0:15:09 really activates curiosity over judgment in a situation with their kids. And a good parent
0:15:15 probably can put into action the idea that really being the sturdiest leader for your kid
0:15:25 involves equal parts, very firm boundaries, and parental authority, as it does kind of warm,
0:15:29 validating connection. You mentioned curiosity over judgment. Now,
0:15:34 when people hear this for judgment, they probably assume that as a negative judgment,
0:15:40 but a judgment could also be something like “good job,” right? So what would curiosity
0:15:47 look like in place of either a negative or a positive judgment? Yeah, I think the words “good
0:15:50 job” have gotten a lot of presser parents like, “You know, so say good job. Say good job. That’s
0:15:54 not going to do damn much to your kid.” I think there’s a lot we cannot pack there against there’s
0:15:58 deeper principles, right? They’re like, “Oh, what do kids really need when they have accomplishments?”
0:16:04 Yeah, I like how you zoom out because it’s not the whether you’re using the crayons or the oil
0:16:09 paints or the acrylics or charcoal. You have to learn the fundamentals of drawing, and to do
0:16:13 that you need to learn how to see things. So it’s like returning to those first principles.
0:16:18 That’s right. That’s exactly right. So I think judgment, it can be positive, but I would say
0:16:24 in parenting, actually in any relationship, it’s just so easy to see someone’s behavior that feels
0:16:31 bad or feels less than ideal, and we just activate our judgment about the behavior. And usually,
0:16:36 when you judge behavior, what you’re unconsciously doing is you’re seeing behavior as a sign of who
0:16:40 someone is. That’s why you’re judging it. It’s a person such a selfish person, right? My friend
0:16:46 didn’t call me back. Oh, they’re so selfish. Or my kid keeps hitting on the playground, even though
0:16:50 I say no hitting. And then we don’t even realize going to like, “What’s wrong with my kid? Why
0:16:54 do I have such a bad kid?” You know, my kid is never going to figure things out. I’m a bad parent.
0:17:00 You just see something on the surface and you kind of feel like you know everything about it. I
0:17:03 actually think I never thought about that. That’s really what it means to judge something. I see
0:17:08 something as probably part of a larger story. And instead, I think it’s the whole thing.
0:17:15 To me, the opposite of judgment in any relationship is curiosity. And I think curiosity is when you
0:17:19 see something and you just wonder about it. To me, that’s like one of the best words for parents.
0:17:26 Wonder. I wonder why my kid is hitting. As soon as you use the word wonder, you’re unable to judge
0:17:29 because you’re thinking and kind of conjuring up this bigger picture.
0:17:34 Now, where parents usually go when they hear me say that, it’s like, “Oh, so it’s just okay,
0:17:39 my kid’s hitting.” And there’s this, again, judgment we even do there.
0:17:42 You must deal with so many people, so many strong opinions.
0:17:47 Well, I get it. I have so much empathy for parents and even understand their skepticism
0:17:53 of our approach because we have had shoved down our throat this very, very behavior first,
0:17:58 punishment first. We call it discipline. It’s actually a joke to me in any other area of life
0:18:04 if we allowed CEOs and coaches to talk to the people in our organizations like we think parents
0:18:08 do to kids. And then we call it disciplined. It would never fly and those people would be fired.
0:18:13 But we’ve had that shoved down our throats. And so anything new always feels uncomfortable.
0:18:17 And these are very new ideas. But I think about with other areas, even with kids,
0:18:22 if your kid isn’t learning how to swim, you teach them how to swim. And nobody says,
0:18:26 “Oh, you just think it’s okay that they’re not swimming?” It’s like, “What? I’m just
0:18:31 teaching them how to swim.” So I have a bunch of thoughts on this good job thing. I know that
0:18:37 I like your potential replacements for that. Could you just, just to give people a concrete
0:18:42 example, like what might you say instead of good job? A kid comes to us and let’s say they,
0:18:47 I don’t know, a young kid brings us a painting and we could say, “Oh, good job. It’s amazing.”
0:18:50 Right? Or let’s say an older kid brings us some paper they wrote and they got a good grade and
0:18:56 we say, “Good job.” Okay, again, good job does not damage kids. But I think in those moments,
0:19:00 we want as parents to kind of double down on building our kids’ confidence. That’s usually
0:19:05 the goal we’re optimizing for. So then to me, the question is, is that like the best of all
0:19:10 options? Or at least we have other tools in our toolbox. And the thing that really builds kids’
0:19:18 confidence is learning to gaze in before you gaze out. We’re in a world that is priming us
0:19:23 to gaze out before we gaze in. Kind of like, “Look what I’ve done and can someone in the world tell
0:19:27 me it/I am good enough?” That’s basically the world we live in. And it makes you very empty and
0:19:32 very fragile, very, very anxious. I’m talking about social media. It’s social media. Yeah,
0:19:36 everything. I mean, so many things, right? Definitely social media. And if I think about
0:19:41 this moment, and again, I’m often very long-term thinking, but my kids over and over show me things.
0:19:45 What’s going to help them down the road? Well, I know when you’re in your 20s and 30s,
0:19:49 what’s really helpful down the road is when you produce something, maybe it’s art,
0:19:55 maybe it’s a project. Being able to give yourself some estimation of that before others do is very
0:20:00 helpful to your whole self-concept and protective of anxiety and depression. I think I did a good
0:20:04 job in this project. It’s true. I didn’t hear back from my boss yet, but I’m a little anxious about
0:20:08 what my boss is going to say. But the fact that someone didn’t tell me something isn’t going to
0:20:15 spiral me. And I think about the yearning and the searching and the desperation for a good job.
0:20:20 Well, if every time my kid produces something, again, what they wire next to that is someone
0:20:26 telling them, “Good job,” then they go into the world unable to give themselves that type of
0:20:30 validation and searching for someone to say they’re good enough. So what do I like better?
0:20:35 Anything that helps your kid share more about themselves actually ends up feeling better to
0:20:40 your kid also. So I think about a little while ago, my daughter paints stuff, and she did. She
0:20:44 gave me this painting. I’m a horrible artist. So anything she does is amazing. But what I said to
0:20:50 her first, it said, “Oh, tell me about the painting. What made you pick red there?” She told me this
0:20:58 whole story, this whole story about how she hasn’t ever really seen a red police car and whatever it
0:21:04 was. She shared her story with me. Same thing I’m thinking about a kid giving us a paper. Oh,
0:21:09 how do you think it could have come up with that topic? Oh, what made you start it that way? Oh,
0:21:13 what was it like writing that? Whatever the questions are. And I know it sounds annoying at
0:21:17 first. I get it because apparently you’re like, “Oh, really? Can I just say good job?” And of course,
0:21:22 you can. But then again, I go to an adult example. Like, let’s say Tim, you redid your house. Okay,
0:21:28 and I visited and you really worked hard on it. And I came and go, “Oh, I love your house. Good job.”
0:21:33 It’s actually kind of a conversation ender. I feel like you’d say to me, “Thank you.” But if
0:21:39 instead I said, “How did you pick that color wall with that couch?” You would, “Oh, okay. Well,
0:21:43 let me tell you and let me show you my Pinterest board or whatever it was.” And even if I never
0:21:50 said, “Good job,” I bet you would feel more lit up inside and almost better than if I had just
0:21:54 kind of ended the conversation that way. Yeah, for sure. I have a number of friends. I mean,
0:21:58 I have a lot of friends with kids. But one who comes to mind, I’m not going to name him. But he’s
0:22:07 very good at this. And one of the best learners of any skill I’ve ever met. He’s just an incredible
0:22:12 human. The other thing that he did, and this was even prior to books like “Grit,” I think that’s
0:22:19 Angela Duckworth. But instead of saying, “Good job,” another thing he would do is say something.
0:22:23 I’m making this up as an example. But he would be like, “I’m so proud of you. You work so hard on
0:22:28 that to reinforce the effort, the process over the outcome.” That’s right.
0:22:34 Which seems to make sense, right? And you’re not suggesting your path is the one only toolkit of
0:22:40 purity and redemption and the sense that it can combine with other things. But the first principles
0:22:46 are adaptable as long as you understand what those principles are. Yeah, I think that every parent
0:22:49 should be like some percentage of the time and be like, “Great job. That’s cool. That’s awesome.
0:22:57 Okay.” But those questions process over product, asking for a kid’s story, asking them to tell you.
0:23:02 Once you get started, it’s easier. And yes, it actually focuses on what’s more in a kid’s control
0:23:07 and then setting up your kids to feel good about themselves, even if they’re not always getting
0:23:12 100. This is just such a massive privilege. And it actually makes them work harder
0:23:15 because they’re focused on their effort and process instead of just on a result.
0:23:20 What is your opinion of parents focusing or viewing their job as
0:23:25 making their kids happy, optimizing for happiness? Right? Because who’s going to poo poo happiness?
0:23:27 Right? I mean, it’s sad ones. I will.
0:23:33 All right. So let’s wade into the deep waters. It’s something people say is a throwaway comment.
0:23:36 Like my husband always jokes when you’re at like a dinner party. He’s like,
0:23:38 “You just want your kids to be happy, right? And I’ll look at me and think,
0:23:42 Becky, please don’t ruin this perfectly nice moment. Don’t take it. Don’t take the bait.”
0:23:47 And I always do. No. I very much would say a parent’s job is not to make
0:23:52 kids happy. And again, because we struggle to hold multiplicity, people will say,
0:23:56 “You want your kids to be unhappy?” No. I definitely don’t try to make my kids unhappy.
0:23:59 Can I just stop to say, you’re not going to like this, maybe you’re like,
0:24:04 “Why are people so stupid and just want to fight?” It’s like, obviously, you don’t mean that.
0:24:09 We think in these extremes. We see that in all areas. And holding two things as true or holding
0:24:14 nuance is increasingly hard in this world, which is why it’s even more important to kind of have
0:24:19 some of these ideas in our homes. So you use the word optimizing. And I think about that a lot.
0:24:24 So zooming out again about kind of good insight in general, as I would say,
0:24:28 our parenting approach is just very long-term greedy. Because I just think my kids are going
0:24:33 to be out of my house for way longer than they’re in my house. They’re going to choose whether they
0:24:38 want to be in a relationship with me way longer than they’re locked into a relationship with me.
0:24:45 And however high the stakes feel when they’re eight and 10 and 17, we know the stakes in life
0:24:53 just get higher. And so when we think about making our kids happy, what we’re actually saying is,
0:25:01 “I am prioritizing my kids’ short-term ease. I am making my kids’ life easy and comfortable
0:25:05 in the short-term.” And what ends up happening, not when you do that a couple of times, but as a
0:25:12 pattern, is you actually narrow the range of emotions kids believe they can cope with.
0:25:17 100%. For sure. True in partnerships, too. True in a lot of relationships.
0:25:22 You end up having adults who are remarkably anxious. So prioritizing happiness for kids
0:25:28 leads to adulthood full of a ton of anxiety. Because you’re protecting them from a broader
0:25:33 band of emotional exposure. And so they don’t develop the confidence that they can handle
0:25:39 those broader ranges. I have to sometimes use hyperbolic language with myself to really get
0:25:44 me to do something that’s hard, but I think good for my kids. I see my kid who’s left out of a
0:25:50 social event or who got the school project in a group where all of his friends are together
0:25:54 and my kid is the only one not with his friends. Or my kid is struggling to do a puzzle.
0:26:00 And one of the things I say to myself is, Becky, do not deprive my child of finding their capability.
0:26:06 Do not steal it. Do not steal their capability. A kid doesn’t feel capable when they do something
0:26:11 easy. A kid doesn’t even feel capable when they’re doing something hard.
0:26:15 Kids develop capability after watching themselves survive something that was really difficult and
0:26:20 just get through it. And so if I say to my kid, I’ll call the school and I’ll switch the school
0:26:22 group for you. Oh, I’ll do that puzzle for you because I just don’t want to deal with you having
0:26:27 a meltdown. Not once, but over and over. I’m actually stealing their capability. Capability
0:26:32 really is the antidote to anxiety. And going forward, when I think about my kids going into the
0:26:39 world, what’s more important than feeling like I can be capable in a wide range, not very narrow,
0:26:48 bubbled cushion range of situations? What does it mean to be a sturdy leader?
0:26:54 I love the word sturdy. There are certain words I love because even though I’m a psychologist and
0:26:58 I have a lot of words to say, I actually think very visually. And to me, the words that make
0:27:04 sense evoke an emotion that I can access, the word sturdy just does that for me. And again,
0:27:07 I think sturdy leadership is what we want in a CEO. It’s what we want in a partner. It’s what we
0:27:13 want in a coach. It’s definitely what we want in a pilot. So does that mean reliable, dependable?
0:27:20 I think there’s a couple ways. I think it’s a leader who is equally boundaries as they are
0:27:24 connected to you. They’re actually equally as connected to themselves. What do I want? What
0:27:29 are my values? What are my limitations? As they are able to connect to you. Oh, you might be
0:27:35 different, but I’m able to hear and understand your values and wants and feelings. And to me,
0:27:43 the way that can get kind of operationalized as a kind of really set of skills is you know
0:27:46 how to set boundaries. And I think most people get boundaries completely wrong. So I know how
0:27:52 to set and hold boundaries. And at the same time, I’m able to connect to and validate other people’s
0:27:57 emotional experiences. Those are the two pillars of sturdy leadership. Could you paint a scenario
0:28:02 for us? You have great scripts and people come to you for scripts. Doesn’t have to be a verbatim
0:28:08 script. But could you just walk us through a hypothetical situation that exemplifies
0:28:13 someone being sturdy in this way? Yes. I think sometimes the best way to do it is actually in
0:28:18 this pilot metaphor. Can I do that first and then look into it? Let’s get into the pilots.
0:28:24 Okay. So are you actually a pilot? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not a pilot. I have landed a
0:28:32 plane, but I’m not a pilot. Sully. Right there. Got Sully. Okay. I’m definitely not the sturdy
0:28:37 pilot you want. So I’m definitely not a pilot. You know, you’re a passenger on a flight and
0:28:42 there’s, let’s say, a lot of turbulence. And you’re very scared. Maybe even you look around and
0:28:47 everyone’s pretty scared. I think there’s three versions of a pilot that you might hear come over
0:28:51 the loudspeaker. And I actually think they perfectly exemplify three different versions
0:28:56 of parenting. So here’s pilot one. Everyone stop screaming. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.
0:29:02 And I can’t focus and you ruin everything. And you’re just gonna all have your frequent flyer
0:29:07 miles taken away if you keep screaming. Something like that. Not super reassuring. Not reassuring.
0:29:14 And the invalidation there as a passenger for me almost makes me worried. Is the pilot not
0:29:22 no turbulence? And oh my goodness, me screaming and being scared is enough to make the pilot kind
0:29:26 of freak out at me. Like that actually doesn’t feel good. It feels like I was contagious to the
0:29:32 pilot and they couldn’t handle the situation. Okay. That’s pilot one. That’s like when we say to
0:29:37 our kids, “If you don’t listen to me the next time, you’re losing dessert. You’re so rude. You
0:29:42 can’t hit your sister. And you ruin every family vacation.” Whatever we kind of just scream at
0:29:47 our kids and we threaten things that by the way we never follow up on. And we just do a lot of
0:29:51 punishment because we don’t really know what to do. That’s pilot one. Pilot two is almost the
0:29:57 opposite extreme. Like everyone’s scared and it is, you’re right. It is really turbulent and
0:30:01 I don’t know. I’m just gonna open up the cockpit door and if any of you know how to pilot the plane
0:30:05 just come on in and take over. And at this point, you’re no longer scared of turbulence and you’re
0:30:12 just terrified that this person is your pilot, right? Because there’s this merger. My overwhelm
0:30:18 became your overwhelm and you just melted in front of me. That is so scary. The pilot we want to hear
0:30:22 is the sturdy leader and they’d probably say something like this, “I hear you screaming.”
0:30:30 That makes sense. It’s very turbulent. And I’ve done this a million times. I know what I’m doing.
0:30:36 What scares you does not scare me. And so I’m gonna get off the loudspeaker
0:30:39 and go back to piloting the plane and I’ll see you on the ground in Los Angeles.
0:30:44 And what’s crazy is I think you think about a passenger in that situation
0:30:50 and I’m gonna guess even if the turbulence was the same, they feel calmer because what a sturdy
0:30:57 leader really does is they say to you, “I see what’s happening for you. I see your feelings as real
0:31:04 and your feelings don’t overwhelm me.” There’s a boundary. I can see yours as real and connect to
0:31:09 them while I can maintain a separate connection for myself. And there’s kind of this cockpit between
0:31:14 us. That’s like saying to your kid, “Oh, you know, they’re having a meltdown because you say no to
0:31:19 ice cream for breakfast, right?” And you say, “Oh, you really wanted ice cream for breakfast. I get
0:31:25 it. It’s so yummy.” And that’s not an option, sweetie. You can have a waffle. You can have cereal.
0:31:29 Let me know when you want to make a decision. And when I model that, the parent will say,
0:31:33 “It’s not working. It’s not working.” I’m like, “What do you mean it’s not working?”
0:31:38 Well, my kid still screams. I’m just thinking about my pilot saying, “My announcement didn’t work.
0:31:42 My passengers are still scared of the turbulence. Can you imagine who cares in a way that they’re
0:31:50 still scared?” Their reaction is not a barometer for whether you are doing a good job and defining
0:31:56 it that way can get into real role confusion, can get us into a lot of trouble.
0:32:01 What do you mean by role confusion? Well, I think every parent wants to do a good job.
0:32:04 But over and over when I talk to parents and their kids, they’re tantruming all the time,
0:32:08 they’re rude, whatever it is, I’ll say to them, “What is your job in this situation?”
0:32:13 And all of them say, “I have no idea.” But again, I go to the workplace and I imagine someone at
0:32:19 good inside as a company showing up and me as CEO saying, “I do a good job today.” And
0:32:23 then saying, “But I don’t have a job description.” And I’d be like, “Do a good job.” And they say,
0:32:27 “Becky, I cannot do a good job if I don’t know what my job is and I need to know what that person’s
0:32:32 job is so I know what they’re doing versus what I’m doing.” That’s totally fair. So I think as a
0:32:38 parent, if you don’t know what your job is, you can’t do a good job. And what role confusion,
0:32:42 what I mean by that is number one, you don’t have clarity on your job. Because I think any parent
0:32:46 listening to this, if you think about any tricky situation, my kid’s rude, my kid’s not sleeping,
0:32:52 my kid’s lying, what is my job in the situation? If you don’t know that with clarity, that’s at
0:32:58 least your starting point. And often as parents, we ask our kid to do our job for us.
0:33:04 What would you offer as a sample job description?
0:33:11 Almost always our jobs are those two things. Setting boundaries. Boundaries are limits we set,
0:33:14 they’re decisions we make, and sometimes especially when our kids are younger,
0:33:18 they’re truly, they’re physical. They’re stopping my kid from running into the street
0:33:23 or picking my kid up and leaving the park because they’re having a meltdown even though
0:33:27 my kid doesn’t want to be doing that. Those are boundaries. The other side
0:33:34 is always seeing the good kid under the bad behavior and connecting to my kid in that way.
0:33:38 Here’s a good example. I hear all the time, my kid doesn’t listen to anything. My kid doesn’t
0:33:43 listen to anything I say. For example, my kid is jumping on the couch right near a glass table,
0:33:48 get off the couch, stop jumping on the couch, and they don’t listen. I say, “Stop jumping on the
0:33:52 couch.” And then I say, “If you don’t get off the couch by the time I count to three, I’m going to
0:33:54 take away your dessert and then I don’t really take away the dessert because I don’t want to melt
0:34:00 down later that night.” This is so common. Sounds like a mess. Right, it’s a mess. So number one,
0:34:05 I would say, “What is your job?” Again, I think they would say, “I’m doing my job. I’m trying to
0:34:10 get my kid off the couch.” But you’re asking your kid to do your job for you. You’re watching your
0:34:16 kid not able to make a good decision. This is your kid who you like. And instead of helping them be
0:34:22 safe, you’re asking them to do something they’re showing you they can’t do. So what would you
0:34:25 potentially do? Great. So let’s start. I can’t even answer that without saying what’s a boundary
0:34:29 because that parent I would say is not setting boundaries. And this is true separate from kids.
0:34:35 Is it fair to think about boundaries as rules you follow consistently? Or is, I guess, there’s
0:34:39 probably more nuance to that. I mean, I guess I think it’s fair to say, but I would say it’s not
0:34:44 the most actionable helpful definition. Okay, all right, great. To me, my definition of boundaries,
0:34:49 boundaries are things you tell people you will do and they require the other person to do nothing.
0:34:57 That’s a really important dual kind of definition. It’s something I tell, let’s say it’s my kid,
0:35:03 although it could be your colleague or anyone, it’s what I tell my kid I will do. That’s an
0:35:07 assertion of my power. It’s what I will do. I’m not letting my day be ruined by my four-year-old
0:35:11 not listening. I just like myself and my kid too much to do that. So a boundary is something I tell
0:35:18 my kid I will do. And its success requires my kid to do nothing, get off the couch, get off the couch.
0:35:23 I’m not telling my kid what I will do. And it requires them to do something
0:35:29 to be successful. It’s a complete giving away of your power versus, and this surprises people,
0:35:33 because too often I think good inside we get lumped in with like soft, permissive parenting.
0:35:38 This is zero percent permissive. Setting a boundary and validating my kid’s feelings,
0:35:43 being sturdy, would sound like this. Once I tell my kid, “Hey, get off the couch.” They don’t. I’d
0:35:48 say, “Look, I’m going to walk over to you.” And if by the time I get there, you’re not off the couch,
0:35:54 I will put my arms around you. I’ll pick you up. I’ll put you on the floor, because my number one
0:35:59 job is to keep you safe and it’s just not safe to jump near that glass table. Okay. Now in my own
0:36:04 house, when my kids were younger, I’d go over to my kid and people have this illusion. So you do
0:36:10 this and then your kid just gets off the couch. No, no, they don’t. You do this. You get over there.
0:36:14 If you have a normal child, they’re going to look at you in the eye and keep jumping up and down,
0:36:18 not because they don’t respect you, just because they haven’t learned how to control their impulses
0:36:23 yet. So then I would do my job. I would put my arm, okay? I’m going to pick you up now. I’m going
0:36:28 to put them on the ground. They will not look at you and say, “Thank you for your sturdy leadership.”
0:36:33 You’re so amazing. I really needed that. Thank you for seeing. No, they will scream. But actually,
0:36:40 when you understand this kind of parent’s job visual, you set a boundary. Every time you
0:36:44 set a boundary, your kid’s going to get upset until they get a little more used to it. But that’s
0:36:48 because when you set a boundary, you’re basically just telling your kid you can’t do something you
0:36:53 want to do. Humans feel upset when they’re stopped from doing things they want to do all the time.
0:37:00 They get upset and it actually allows you to do the second part of your job. So I pick my kid up,
0:37:04 they scream, “No, put me down. I hate you,” whatever they say in the state. And then I can say, “Oh,
0:37:08 you really want to jump on the couch. You really don’t want to jump on the floor. It’s so boring.”
0:37:15 Again, when I say that, that doesn’t mean for one instant that I let my kid back on the couch,
0:37:19 what they will try to do. And my hands will be ready to block them. Nope, I’m not going to let
0:37:25 you do that. This is where I think it really is this revolutionary idea in any relationship.
0:37:32 I can be equally strong and equally connected to someone else, and that’s true sturdiness and
0:37:39 really doing our job. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we’ll be right back to the
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0:38:48 I wanted to ask you about perhaps another facet of doing your job,
0:38:52 but you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. So I will ask this question in the
0:38:59 following way. This is from a participant in one of your workshops, and they described your
0:39:04 approach as one of, quote, “Coaching a nervous system to cope with being a human in the world,”
0:39:12 end quote. Is that a fair description? What we do? Yeah. Or would you say, “Not quite,
0:39:19 close but a miss.” What I love about that is it captures something that’s so much more true
0:39:26 than why most people initially come to us. They come to us because their kids are having tantrums,
0:39:29 their kids aren’t sleeping, their kids are being rude, their kids are being defiant.
0:39:36 And what they end up getting is they themselves get rewiring to be sturdier
0:39:40 in the world while they learn how to give that to their kids from the start.
0:39:45 So I think that that’s close. Yeah. I mean, that’s referring back to what
0:39:51 I mentioned earlier in this conversation. It’s really simpatico with so many other things
0:40:00 that I’ve been exposed to. But it seems like with good insight, the child is, yes, you’re
0:40:04 interacting with the child. Yes, one of the objectives is to become a better parent and be
0:40:11 more connected and be a sturdy leader. And your child is also a mirror and a medium through which
0:40:15 you get to work on yourself. Because if you’re dysregulated, guess what? How can you expect your
0:40:23 kid to be regulated? And some people are going to hate this because I recognize that Cuban children
0:40:31 are not dogs. But for instance, there’s a great book. There’s so many terrible books on dog training.
0:40:37 But one which has a terrible title, unfortunately, called Don’t Shoot the Dog, is written by Karen
0:40:44 Pryor. She took clicker training from marine mammals and brought it over to shaping behavior
0:40:52 with dogs. So clicker training is when you click to reward a certain behavior or getting
0:40:58 directionally moving towards the right behavior, and then you’re able to sort of time mark that
0:41:02 and offer reward. But the reason I’m bringing this up is not that you should use clicker training
0:41:06 with humans. I’ve tried that as a joke. It generally lands really poorly. But rather,
0:41:12 she reinforces over and over again why most dog problems are actually owner problems.
0:41:19 And you need to be consistent. If you are trying to shape behavior, you also need to be
0:41:26 very, very consistent with. And I know this might open up some debate, but rewards generally not
0:41:32 punishments. In her approach, it’s almost all positive reinforcement. And when I see, for instance,
0:41:36 I mean, she’s not here today, but I have a very well trained dog. And I have some tolerance for
0:41:41 the manani of dog training. And I find it very soothing, actually. But when I see dogs that are
0:41:48 misbehaving, because they were never trained early on, and then their owners are freaking out,
0:41:52 maybe hitting them, being really abusive, I’m like, that is an owner problem. That’s not a dog
0:41:59 problem. And I have to imagine they’re probably similar examples from parenting, and there must be.
0:42:04 My oldest son said something once that I don’t think he meant to be as profound,
0:42:08 but it’s something that sticks with me a lot. And it goes kind of problem blame where
0:42:12 we’re in the situation in the car. And essentially, my husband thought my son
0:42:16 had closed the door, and he didn’t, and kind of backed out the car, and the car got caught in
0:42:21 the garage with the door anyway. And he kind of said something to my son, and my son just said,
0:42:29 it’s not my fault. And my husband said, so it’s my fault. And my son said, I think he was, I don’t
0:42:33 even know, eight at the time, he goes, you know, sometimes bad things happen, and it’s nobody’s
0:42:39 fault. And I think for parents, this is always true. Like when your kid is really struggling,
0:42:44 is it a kid’s fault? Is it a parent’s fault? Like we’re obsessed with fault. Why is it anybody’s
0:42:49 kind of fault? I always say to parents, it’s not your fault, your kid’s struggling in the way
0:42:55 they are. Fault’s just not a useful framework. You are the leader of your home. And if all the
0:43:01 associates in some big company, you know, we’re struggling, I don’t think you would start an
0:43:05 intervention at the associate level. Leadership would say, okay, it’s not our fault, but like,
0:43:10 we’re the leaders. So what are we going to do? It’s not your fault, but it’s your responsibility.
0:43:13 It’s your responsibility, exactly. And the other thing is, I think when we become parents,
0:43:18 it’s not just like our kids’ problems are our fault or our problems, but I see a much more
0:43:23 hopeful framework where through your kids, if you want to take this on as a journey, you will learn
0:43:28 everything. You ever needed to know about yourself, your own childhood. By the way, you watch your
0:43:33 partner’s childhood play out. You’re like, oh, that’s how you were raised. I see it now. And
0:43:38 there’s so much learning, right? And that’s hard. Learning is hard. Growth is hard. And
0:43:43 it is kind of this amazing opportunity rather than my kid’s problem being my fault or my problem.
0:43:49 You could be like, there is an opportunity for everyone here. What is the MGI? I love a good
0:43:56 acronym. So when I was in my clinical psychology PhD program, I’d always hear these amazing people
0:44:00 speak. And I’d go with my classmates and be like, that was amazing. And I’d say, yes, it’s amazing,
0:44:04 but what are we going to do about it? And I’d be like, what do you mean? Just think about it.
0:44:10 I really don’t love thoughts without actions. I just like to know, okay, what do I do? How do I
0:44:16 action on this great idea? And to me, this idea that your kid, all of us, we are good inside
0:44:22 identity, separate from behavior, it’s a very powerful idea. But I don’t find it as actionable
0:44:28 as I would like. So to me, the way to action on that idea is this idea of MGI. And to me,
0:44:32 this is something in all of our relationships, even if it’s just after the fact at the end of
0:44:38 the day, we can ask ourselves, an MGI just stands for most generous interpretation. What is the most
0:44:44 generous interpretation I can come up with of my kid’s behavior, of my colleagues behavior,
0:44:50 my teammates behavior, because I think what happens naturally is we default to the LGI,
0:44:54 the least generous interpretation. So you see your kid, they lie to your face once, no,
0:44:58 I didn’t take KitKats from, I didn’t eat before dinner, and they like chocolate all over.
0:45:05 And it’s just so easy. You just go to like, my kid is a sociopath, my kid doesn’t respect me,
0:45:10 I’m like, well, my kid ate a KitKat. And like, all of a sudden, this is a matter of like respecting
0:45:16 me, right? Or, you know, my kid is hitting, they’re in a hitting stage. And again, we just go to,
0:45:19 my kid is never going to have any friends, my kid is clingy, they’re always going to be the
0:45:23 loser at parties, and they’re never going to be able to converse with anyone. And then what happens
0:45:29 and why the LGI is so almost dangerous is it makes us do this fast forward error. We take a
0:45:35 situation today, we fast forward to what that means about our kid, I don’t know, 20 years from now.
0:45:40 And then we respond in the moment based on all of that fear, rather than what’s just going on in
0:45:47 the moment. And MGI really shakes us out of that. What is the most generous interpretation of why my
0:45:53 kid would lie to my face? Whenever I ask parents that, it’s amazing, their countenance goes from
0:46:01 like so angry at their four-year-old. Oh, they’re probably scared of my reaction. Okay. And then
0:46:08 eventually they’re like, what do I do? But the mindset we’re in in life determines the interventions
0:46:14 we use. And I can promise you, as long as you’re in an LGI mindset with your kid, with your partner,
0:46:20 with your colleague, zero productive things can happen. And then we say, what do I do? What do
0:46:26 I do? The answer is to stop doing from that mindset and ask yourself a different question
0:46:29 to get in a more productive mindset and then intervene from there.
0:46:36 So we’re meeting for the first time. We have a lot of mutual friends, it turns out. But I have this
0:46:42 suspicion that we have a fair amount of shared DNA just in terms of how we operate. And as you’re
0:46:49 mentioning the thoughts as being interesting, but not that interesting, if there’s no action to
0:46:55 apply these thoughts, I thought that might be a useful place for a segue. So I read that you’re
0:47:01 a planner and that your husband gave you some advice around planning. Is this enough of a cue
0:47:06 to a prompt? I don’t know. It’s not a lot. Oh, you don’t. I don’t know. I need more. All right. So
0:47:14 this is from romper. And so this is the journalist speaking. I tend to catastrophize,
0:47:18 to jump to the worst case scenario and we’re struggling with a difficult phase or unpleasant
0:47:22 pattern. But I tell myself to have faith, to believe that we will work ourselves to a better
0:47:27 place. And then this is, I believe, quoting you, I’m guessing you’re a planner, she responds.
0:47:32 I’m a planner too. My husband said to me over the pandemic, I never thought of planners as pessimists.
0:47:36 But the opposite of planning is not catastrophe. It’s being able to say to yourself,
0:47:40 I’ll figure it out no matter what happens. The opposite of catastrophizing isn’t
0:47:44 predicting the good. It’s saying to yourself, I’ll find my feet. I’ll be able to cope with
0:47:50 what comes my way. So this is a roundabout way of asking what historically or currently
0:47:58 have been your biggest challenges in parenting that could be with your kids. It could be with your
0:48:04 husband, could be other, but what comes to mind? It’s a great segue and that is true,
0:48:10 where my husband said to me when I during the pandemic, I kind of started this whole part of
0:48:16 my career. And I kind of versed in these like creative thoughts where I became much less organized.
0:48:20 And I had all this creativity. And at the same time, the pandemic was very hard to me. And this
0:48:25 relates to one of the things that’s hard for me in parenting. And one of the things I talk about
0:48:28 a lot. So people probably think I’m good at it, but I talk about it all the time. So I’m bad at it.
0:48:32 That’s why anybody talks about things all the time where he’s like, wow, I think I made,
0:48:36 I didn’t marry like a very logical optimist. I think I married like a creative pessimist.
0:48:42 He’s like, look at this creative pessimist. You know, I think I’m short term pessimistic.
0:48:49 Yes, long term optimistic. And what I mean by that is I love a plan. I love an action. People
0:48:54 outside of me will be like Becky is one of the most productive people I know. And I think that’s
0:49:02 probably true on the surface. But the driver of that is I’m incredibly anxious when I want to do
0:49:07 something and haven’t yet done it. That the way I relieve my own anxiety is just to do it. So it
0:49:14 looks productive, but it’s probably just an anxiety coping skill. And what that means is when I want
0:49:20 to do something or there’s a struggle and I can’t get action on it. I have a really hard time.
0:49:25 What would be an example of that? I mean, all during COVID in terms of I think one of the
0:49:29 reasons I probably, in some ways, people say, oh, you were like there for me in COVID and I produced
0:49:34 so much content is I just like needed something to do because the pause of that slowness that like
0:49:38 there’s not a lot to do to fix this. You just kind of have to be in it is really, really hard for me.
0:49:44 Another example of that is, you know, I think about my kids and, you know, they’re now 7, 10,
0:49:50 and 13. So, you know, each of them, they go through these stages and, you know, maybe some social
0:49:57 shifts or harder stages. And I think I talk so much about sitting with feelings and not fixing
0:50:04 them because my first instinct for sure is to just go in and make it better, make them happy.
0:50:11 And that is something, again, the parallel process of like learning to just sit with my own feelings.
0:50:16 All of us who can be prone to action, there’s like a morality to it, like a better, you know,
0:50:20 thing. And it can be better in some circumstances, but sometimes the best thing to do
0:50:27 is just sit with it. And that is something I think I have worked on in myself, even, you know,
0:50:33 through working on it with my kids. In addition to your book, Good Inside,
0:50:37 a Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, which has been recommended to me by multiple
0:50:44 close friends, even though I don’t have kids. In addition to that, what other books or modalities
0:50:51 do you think could be helpful for someone in relationship and/or with kids? For instance,
0:50:55 it’s a few come to mind, right? There’s a book called Conscious Loving. I think it’s by Gay and
0:51:01 Katie Hendricks. I always mix up the Hendricks because they’re two pairs. There’s nonviolent
0:51:07 communication. Great book. There is, I think I mentioned extreme ownership, which it does
0:51:15 actually overlap in certain ways. You have, I believe, a quote from Dick Schwartz.
0:51:20 I was going to say, love Dick Schwartz. Internal IFS, Internal Family Systems. For
0:51:25 people interested, I did a live session with him on this podcast, which got very interesting,
0:51:30 very, very quickly. Fascinating practitioner, really useful system. Anything else come to mind,
0:51:35 any books, resources, anything at all that you would kind of add to that list?
0:51:40 The three books, I guess, that are top of mind would be, yeah, Dick Schwartz’s No Bad Parts
0:51:45 or just his Internal Family Systems book. I mean, he knows I’ve been very influenced by him when
0:51:52 I work with adults in therapy. To me, some of the best gifts and privileges we can give our kids
0:51:57 is helping them understand the parts of themselves and talk to their parts as kids. When I hear my
0:52:01 kids do that, I always think this is going to help you more when you go to college than anything you
0:52:11 learn. It’s cool. It’s crazy. So IFS, Eve Rodskie’s book, Fair Play, I don’t know that, is, I think,
0:52:16 so powerful, especially for parents who feel like they’re the default parent, meaning they’re the
0:52:22 parent who maybe their partner takes the kid to soccer, but realizing they have to be signed up
0:52:27 for soccer, thinking about what soccer, where to sign up, getting them the shin guards, getting
0:52:32 them the new cleats that actually fit and are the ones they want, that idea of mental load.
0:52:38 The mental load of parenting is so intense, but she really helps put words in a system to that,
0:52:43 that I think makes a lot of parents say, “Oh my God, I’m not crazy. This is a thing. This is a system.”
0:52:45 Why is it called Fair Play?
0:52:51 Because it’s the idea that if you have a partnership, that you don’t have to distribute tasks 50/50,
0:52:57 but that the mental load has a disproportionate impact on your stress and overwhelm,
0:53:00 and there needs to be more Fair Play amongst teammates in that way.
0:53:01 Got it.
0:53:06 And then this might sound like an odd recommendation, but Cheryl Strayed’s tiny, beautiful things.
0:53:12 Cheryl is someone I also wonder, “Do I share DNA with her where I’ll read things she writes in
0:53:16 there?” And I think, “Oh my goodness, did I steal her thought? I swear I say this in my book.” And
0:53:20 she has said to me, “No, I worry I plagiarized you, even though my book came out before your book.”
0:53:24 And it’s very interesting. I’m just hearing my own three suggestions,
0:53:25 and none of them have to do with kids.
0:53:26 But that’s super fascinating.
0:53:29 Maybe that’s my revealing something.
0:53:32 To me, the things we need to learn for our kids when we’re parenting,
0:53:37 if I think about a strategy or what to do with my kid, it’s like something I put on a shelf.
0:53:42 That’s important. When you open a closet door, you need the things on the shelf to take
0:53:45 that are actually useful and feel right and move things forward.
0:53:48 But what I hear from parents all the time is, “I’m learning. I’m learning. I’m
0:53:52 memories. I’m listening. But in the moment, I just scream at my kid.” And then they say,
0:54:01 “What’s wrong with me?” To me, you need the key to the door that is the closet that has that shelf.
0:54:04 Could you explain that one more time?
0:54:09 If all of your parenting strategies are on a shelf in a closet and there’s a door to the closet,
0:54:11 and in the moment, you’re like, “I want to get that strategy.”
0:54:13 You need to be able to access it.
0:54:17 You have to be able to access it. And so for any parent listening who’s like, “That is so me.
0:54:21 I know the thing I want to say, but then I just scream my head off at my kid.”
0:54:26 I would actually say, “Stop learning parenting strategies. You have enough on that shelf.”
0:54:33 For now, what I would focus on are my triggers, what is happening with my kid that I am triggered.
0:54:38 And I am at a 10 out of 10. And when you’re at a 10 out of 10, nobody has a key to any lock.
0:54:40 Yeah, strategy is not going to be forthcoming.
0:54:44 No, the strategies you need have a lot more to do with you, not because it’s your fault.
0:54:48 And the beauty is when you work on those strategies where you’re triggered with your kid,
0:54:53 guess what? If you’re triggered when your kid’s whining, it’s not the whining.
0:54:56 It’s probably the fact that whining generally represents helplessness.
0:55:00 I would guess if that’s a particularly triggering situation,
0:55:03 helplessness was very shamed in your own family.
0:55:05 It was probably a pull up your bootstraps kind of family.
0:55:08 If you’re crying, I’ll give you something to cry about, family.
0:55:10 So you had to shut down your helplessness because it was dangerous.
0:55:15 You see it in your kid and you respond to them in the same way people responded to you.
0:55:17 Okay, that’s like a lot of therapy in 30 seconds.
0:55:18 But let’s say that’s true.
0:55:20 Or people are like, wow, that’s weird. That’s very true.
0:55:23 You can memorize everything you want to say to your kid.
0:55:26 But if you don’t, and IFS is hugely helpful here,
0:55:29 hugely helpful in my reparenting approach and trigger approach,
0:55:34 if you don’t get to know your protector parts and you don’t do that type of work,
0:55:39 then every time when that happens, that part is going to scream out.
0:55:43 So the answer to showing up as a parent you want to be is this combination of,
0:55:45 yes, I have to put the things on the shelf,
0:55:47 but I have to know how to open the door also.
0:55:49 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
0:55:53 So what advice would you give me since I’m currently
0:55:56 wife/partner hunting?
0:56:00 I would like to have a family, but would like to hit some pre-rex.
0:56:06 I mean, it’s technically biologically not that hard to have kids, but I would like to have.
0:56:06 You could do it too.
0:56:11 Build a family together adventure, like to have that version if possible.
0:56:16 For people out there who are single, but would love to have a family,
0:56:23 what advice might you give them in terms of positive indicators for people who will be
0:56:31 leaning towards some of the abilities and self-awareness and skills that make for
0:56:33 a sturdy leader parent?
0:56:37 Because I was like, “Hey, here’s my dossier of 10 prospects.”
0:56:40 And you’re like, “Well, let’s ask a few questions.”
0:56:42 It’s a sturdy leadership on the list.
0:56:46 One second, I’m assessing you for sturdy leadership.
0:56:48 Pre-sturdy leadership.
0:56:50 They’re like, “Ooh, dirty talk.”
0:56:52 Seriously, seriously.
0:56:54 Talk about that one in our next episode.
0:56:57 So a couple of things.
0:57:01 To me, again, being a sturdy leader has nothing to do with being a parent.
0:57:05 And while I think it’s actually through parenting, and this is the beauty that people
0:57:09 have such in their face the work they need to do that they can access that,
0:57:13 you’re right in pointing out how amazing you’re doing some of this work before.
0:57:19 So I think number one, again, curiosity over judgment to me is very, very key
0:57:21 for any sturdy leader at any age.
0:57:26 When you’re dating people, when you’re friends with people, and in general,
0:57:30 they hear something that’s happening for you and they’re more curious and they are judgmental.
0:57:34 “Oh, I did this thing. I had this awful interview. Oh, what happened?
0:57:34 Tell me about that.”
0:57:37 Or you even hear that they approach their own life that way,
0:57:43 where people who have really intense rigid judgments about anyone,
0:57:46 they tend to be that way with others because they tend to be that way with themselves.
0:57:49 And then that’s going to be activated probably with kids.
0:57:50 That’s number one.
0:57:54 To me, I think tolerance for inconvenience.
0:57:58 It’s a really important part of sturdy leadership, especially with kids.
0:58:00 How might you suss that out?
0:58:05 I mean, you can go on a traveling trip and see how they handle baggage being delayed or whatever.
0:58:08 I mean, you can try to engineer it that way, but any other ways-
0:58:11 I think it probably comes up in our life all the time.
0:58:16 I don’t know how much we’re always optimizing for convenience versus like,
0:58:19 “Yeah, let’s take this subway. It’ll take us a little longer, but it’s easy enough.”
0:58:24 Or, “Oh, there’s a way to the restaurant. I really want to go there. Okay. Can I tolerate that?”
0:58:28 Or, “Oh, I really want to go. I was just invited to this party. It’s going to be so cool.
0:58:33 I already committed to my friends in this kind of not quote cool, but random group dinner.”
0:58:34 And like, “You know what? I’m going to miss that party.
0:58:37 This is like my best friend’s birthday party,” whatever it is.
0:58:41 Because I think that’s one of the things with parenting that people don’t talk about enough.
0:58:44 It’s massively inconvenient. That’s really the word I think about all the time.
0:58:48 I show up. I’m trying to grocery shop. My foyer is having a tantrum.
0:58:52 And it’s just like, that’s inconvenient that I’ve spent 10 minutes now dealing with that.
0:58:55 I want to be able to finish my grocery shopping.
0:59:03 I also think in a relationship, the ability to be curious about your experience and not see that
0:59:09 as any reflection on their own experience, which is really the ability to hold multiplicity.
0:59:13 Like, when you say to a partner, like, “Oh, he’s really upset. He didn’t text me back.”
0:59:16 Probably over the partner is their first reaction might be like,
0:59:19 “I wouldn’t have been upset in that situation,” or whatever.
0:59:22 Are you saying I’m a bad person or we get very defensive?
0:59:27 Because we find someone’s experience of us to be counter of our experience of ourselves.
0:59:32 And if we’re very secure and sturdy, we’d be able to say to ourselves,
0:59:35 “Okay, I can know what my intention was and I’m not threatened
0:59:38 by the fact that Tim was upset that I didn’t text him back.
0:59:42 I can be curious about it. Be like, “Oh, tell me more about that. Oh, I see that.”
0:59:45 And I don’t see that as like a threat to myself.
0:59:51 That to me is probably the ultimate indicator because that happens all the time with our kids.
0:59:55 Oh, yeah, I can only imagine. Sure, it happens all the time.
1:00:00 I would love to ask you a few questions that one of my employees sent.
1:00:05 She is a toddler. In every instance that I’ve seen, she tries very hard to be,
1:00:09 however she defines it, a good parent. And I think maybe this conversation will lead her to
1:00:13 think about the definition differently. But she sent a bunch of very good questions.
1:00:19 And we probably won’t have time for all of them. She really took my question
1:00:24 and my producer’s question seriously, I should say. So she has eight questions.
1:00:26 But I want to hop to number eight. Okay.
1:00:32 This is about grandparents. Does Dr. Becky have any good tips on parenting our parents?
1:00:36 Our “boomer parents” often use guilt and sham as teaching methods,
1:00:40 which we don’t love or approve of. But how do we effectively introduce more positive ways
1:00:43 they can grandparent our children when they are together or babysitting for us?
1:00:49 This question could also apply to someone’s partner. If someone reads your book,
1:00:55 they think it’s fantastic, they want to embrace it. But their partner maybe has a heavy-handed
1:01:00 reactive way of handling things or fill in the blank. They’re skeptical.
1:01:04 Right. So maybe you could speak to the grandparents and maybe that will also
1:01:07 speak to the partner question, although there are different dynamics.
1:01:11 They’re related and different. The grandparent one is a great one because I think there’s a
1:01:15 lot to unpack there. So if she was here, I’d first probably ask her questions about what it’s like
1:01:21 for her to parent in a way that’s different from it seems like what her parents think is right.
1:01:25 I actually think that’s at the core. What it feels like for her.
1:01:29 Yeah, what it’s like for her. I mean, I think that what happens when you have kids and grandparents
1:01:34 are involved is we don’t even realize how much unconsciously we’re just looking for them to
1:01:38 tell us we’re doing a good job. And most parents parent differently than their parents did.
1:01:44 Most grandparents find that to be almost a criticism of how they parented.
1:01:48 And so they’re interested in criticizing their kids almost as a way of making themselves feel
1:01:54 better. And then as the parent, we don’t even realize we’re back to being five years old and
1:01:59 being like doing a good job. And the whole thing becomes very, very toxic. To me, the most liberating
1:02:03 thing when you’re an adult, and it’s just an idea obviously takes a little get emotionally there,
1:02:09 is I don’t need my parents approval. I remember when I realized that, that’s actually amazing.
1:02:14 That just changed my life in so many ways. We won’t lose track of the grandparents question,
1:02:22 but was there a catalyzing event, conversation, revelation? There actually was. I just remember
1:02:28 going through my dating life and dating people that my parents would have some things to say about.
1:02:33 And I have not to have any like majorly toxic relationships, but they had opinions. And I
1:02:37 just remember one day thinking the way it came up my head is they’re not dating this person.
1:02:42 Like, there was an I, I think there was a boundary. This like, I’m in the cockpit.
1:02:47 They can be chirpy passengers. But that’s actually what they are. And by the way,
1:02:52 I love my parents. They’re incredible. And I think realizing that, and this is the thing,
1:02:57 when you’re a parent, realizing that about your own parents only serves to make your relationship
1:03:03 better. Because when you’re unconsciously looking for their approval, you get frustrated.
1:03:07 You tend to show up in really confusing ways to your kids. You start to do weird things with
1:03:12 your kids in front of your parents, almost trying to bridge this gap between how I parent
1:03:16 and how my parents want me. And like, who is my parent? They’re doing all this weird stuff that
1:03:21 they never do. And then we really lose ourselves. So what I would actually say here, which sounds
1:03:26 odd, and it’s probably not that dissimilar to what I’d start with, with a partner. Although I think
1:03:31 the dynamic is different with parents is the first step is actually trying to figure out what do I
1:03:40 believe in in my parenting. The sturdier you are in your boundaries, the easier it is to deal with
1:03:46 pushback. And in fact, the opposite is true with boundaries. The more I seek approval for my
1:03:51 boundaries, the weaker my boundaries become. And so that’s where I would actually start.
1:03:57 So let’s say, oh, I wish my parents understood my kids’ tantrums the way I try to understand them.
1:04:01 And instead, my parents tend to say, “Why aren’t you sending Bobby to his room? You have a bad
1:04:04 kid,” or whatever they say. Yeah, or if they’re babysitting, they just do that.
1:04:12 That’s right. But even those conversations are so much easier to have once you’ve really grounded
1:04:19 yourself in what you believe. Because then the conversation becomes less emotional. And here’s
1:04:24 then how I would handle it after that. How I’m handling Bobby’s mouth sounds, I think it’s
1:04:28 different than what comes natural to you. And we have a couple options. I’m happy to kind of go
1:04:35 through it and why. I’m also happy if you don’t really care about the why. Just share how I would
1:04:41 like you to respond. That’s in line with the way we’re doing things. Because given you spend a
1:04:46 good amount of time with him, it’s just confusing for him to hear things so differently. I know you
1:04:51 probably don’t approve, or at least it’s going to feel weird because it’s so new. And this stuff
1:04:55 really matters to me. And then I don’t know how egregious it is. Again, is it just different? Is
1:05:01 it terrifying? We want to differentiate. But the conversation is kind of, me and my parent
1:05:06 even are on the same team. And that conversation, I have a lot more to say about being on the same
1:05:12 team versus oppositional teams, that’s a lot easier to have if I’m less caught up in probably what’s
1:05:17 happening unconsciously, which is trying to get them to kind of tell me that I’m doing a good
1:05:25 job at my kid. Let me bring up one other question of hers. And I may bring up more, but partially
1:05:34 because it also bridges to a question that I had. So this is a question about parenting toddlers
1:05:40 could apply to all sorts of ages. Is it okay to tell my toddler that I’m upset by her behavior?
1:05:44 For example, if she’s whining and complaining about getting buckled into the car and I’ve tried
1:05:48 to stay calm, but it goes on for so long that I get frustrated, is it okay to say that I am
1:05:53 frustrated by her behavior and I need to break? Or what is the best response to avoid guilt and
1:06:01 shaming language? Because I was thinking, was reflecting on the example you gave of the kid
1:06:07 jumping on the couch. And I could very easily see myself like, okay, I’ve done the work,
1:06:16 done the IFS, got the key to the closet. And I go through the routine, right? I set the boundary.
1:06:20 If I walk over there and you’re still on the couch, but I’m calm, I’m calm. Then I put them down,
1:06:26 they scream their face off. They somehow juke me and get back on the couch. Maybe I do it a second
1:06:31 time. But by this point, my blood pressure is a little higher. By like rep number three, like,
1:06:36 there’s a point where if it’s like rep number 20, like, there’s a rep at which anyone will probably
1:06:41 kind of break. So I guess my question is, but we can tackle, I want to answer her question
1:06:47 because she was generous enough to send the questions. Is it okay to tell my kid that I’m
1:06:51 upset or let me get her language? Broader question. Frustrated, I think she said.
1:06:56 Right. Is it okay to say that I’m frustrated by her behavior and that I need to break, etc., etc.?
1:07:00 What is the best response to avoid guilt and shaming language? My broader question is,
1:07:07 what do you do, let’s say in the jumping on the couch example, when you’ve done the right thing
1:07:13 two or three times and the kid is just hell bent? Still being difficult. Yeah.
1:07:18 So a couple of parts to that question. Number one, there’s this thing about, I hear it, I’ve never
1:07:22 said like, you can’t tell your kids how you feel. There’s all these like random things people ingest
1:07:26 and I don’t even know who said that, but I think I’m not supposed to do it to not get, you know.
1:07:29 All right. That’s the 10 commandments. But I would say whenever as a parent, you’re repeating
1:07:33 advice to yourself where you can’t even name the person who said that. It’s a pretty good
1:07:38 not going to let that take up too much space in my head. You know, if I don’t even know the name
1:07:42 of the person who I trust enough to let that live in my head. Oscar Wilde, Abraham Lincoln.
1:07:47 There’s a big difference between saying to your kid, “Hey, I’m really, I’m frustrated.
1:07:55 I’m taking a breath. I’m taking a break. I’ll be back.” And saying, “You make me yell at you.
1:08:03 Stop doing that. That makes mommy so sad.” The insinuation that we say out loud that
1:08:12 your kid, your three-year-old, is making you feel something is actually especially toxic for kids
1:08:17 who, you said like you were, who are kind of rebellious, who already kind of struggle
1:08:20 because they know like, “I’m a little more powerful in my family dynamic than I should be.
1:08:25 People are a little scared of me.” And now my parent is confirming that as a three-year-old,
1:08:30 I have the power to make her feel a certain way. I think we say it because we’re so desperate and
1:08:35 we’re like, “Nothing’s worked. Will this work?” But again, we all say all the things and then we
1:08:40 repair and try to do a little better the next day, but I’m not such a fan. But what that has got
1:08:44 kind of misconstrued as is never telling your kids how you feel. They’re totally different.
1:08:49 Saying to your kid, “That’s a great thing to say. Hey, I’m getting heated. I need a break.”
1:08:55 And then I think it’s helpful to say to a kid, “I love you. I’ll be back.” Because kids are so
1:09:02 attuned evolutionarily to attachment and therefore to proximity and kind of “abandonment” that a kid
1:09:07 can feel like, “Oh, did I make my parent go away?” So, “Hey, I’m feeling frustrated. I need a moment.
1:09:11 It’s actually such beautiful self-care. I’m going to go to my room. I’m going to take some breaths
1:09:16 and I’ll be back.” Connect with you again in a few minutes or whatever it is. And that’s especially
1:09:20 powerful what I want to tell parents listening. If you know you’re someone, you get reactive,
1:09:25 you kind of get to the point where you boil over such a powerful thing to say to your kid to preview
1:09:29 to them before, “Hey, I’m going to start doing something different going forward.” You know how
1:09:35 sometimes you get upset, I get upset, and then kind of there’s like this big screaming moment,
1:09:40 I’m really invested as a parent in trying to have that happen less. Just keep a calmer home.
1:09:45 And one of the things I’m going to do is start to notice when I’m a little upset.
1:09:49 Instead of waiting for it to get to a time when I’m very and you could say to your kid,
1:09:52 because that’s what happens to feelings, right? If you don’t take care of them when they’re small,
1:09:58 they get bigger and out of control. So I might end up saying to you at some point in the next day,
1:10:04 “Ooh, now is one of those moments. I need a break. I’m going to take that and I’ll be back.”
1:10:08 And what I’d say to a parent, “You can practice this with a kid. They love it.” I would actually,
1:10:13 “Okay, let’s practice that. Ooh, get off the couch. Oh, you’re not listening. Okay, ooh. Okay,
1:10:17 dad needs a break right now. I’m going to go to my room. What do you do when I go to my room? Right?
1:10:22 You go to the art room and you color. Like, you can actually practice this just the way we practice
1:10:28 sports plays. Why do you run a play on a basketball team and practice? Because you know you’re not
1:10:33 going to do it in the game if you haven’t run it over and over in practice. I actually think
1:10:38 that’s so powerful to think about our interactions with our kids in the same way. Then when the
1:10:43 moment comes and you say, “Ooh, now is one of those times,” your kid has had a rep already
1:10:46 and the whole moment will probably go a lot more smoothly.
1:10:49 Do you have any other recommendations? I’m thinking of her example.
1:10:54 I like that and it makes a lot of sense. And I’m wondering
1:10:59 what you do in a circumstance where you can’t take a time out for yourself, right? So let’s just
1:11:04 say she’s trying to buckle the kid into the car. Tantrum, tantrum, wine, yell, yell, yell.
1:11:09 She tries to do the right thing, tries to do the right thing. And her kids don’t do in the thing.
1:11:13 Doing the crocodile role in the baby seat or whatever.
1:11:19 So I’ll answer that question, but I really do think, again, it’s a framework shift question
1:11:24 because people say to me all the time. It’s like saying, “When I drive my car to the cliff,
1:11:29 what can I do so I don’t fall off the cliff?” If that was a friend, why are you driving to the cliff
1:11:32 all the time? How about we recognize that you’re on the road to the cliff?
1:11:41 When we get to the point, as a parent, that we are so full of anger, resentment, burnout,
1:11:45 that we’re about to explode because our kid won’t allow us to buckle them into the car seat,
1:11:50 the real question, if you want to make a change, is how do I start to recognize I’m on that road
1:11:56 way before I get to the cliff? What can I do? Why am I getting there so often? How can I get
1:11:59 into a different road? To me, this is the whole idea of rage. This is actually something we talk
1:12:04 about inside all the time because when you don’t take care of yourself as a parent, when you lose
1:12:08 touch with your friends or dance class or whatever the thing that made you feel like you before you
1:12:12 had a kid, you better bet you’re going to be screaming at your kids all the time because,
1:12:16 to some degree, you’re just saying, “I miss all the other parts of me that used to light me up.”
1:12:22 And so I think that’s the better question. Now, still, when you get there, this is where I think
1:12:26 it’s so important to establish that you said, “Good inside it, sturdy, not soft.” If your kid won’t
1:12:30 get into the car seat, okay, hey, we’re going to play a game. We’ve already practiced. We’ve done
1:12:36 the things. There is definitely time and place, sweetie. I’m going to buckle you into the car seat.
1:12:40 You’re going to scream and cry. You’re not going to like it. My number one job is to keep you safe,
1:12:45 and so I’m doing that. Again, my kid’s going to be screaming. I buckle them and then close the door
1:12:50 as I’m walking to the front, and I say to myself, “Oh, my goodness. That was really hard. I’m going
1:12:54 to go to bed early tonight. I’m going to call a friend.” But again, that’s an example. It’s actually
1:12:59 a good example because I actually heard this exact example from Clarence recently that used to drive
1:13:05 me bananas. The reason that situation feels so exhausting is because on some level, you have
1:13:11 job confusion. You think your job is to get your kid happily into their car seat. If you know your
1:13:16 job is to keep your kid safe and to do what you can to try to make it smooth, but then a push comes
1:13:22 to shove, you’re just going to prioritize safety, and you know that that’s you doing your job,
1:13:27 you actually don’t feel as exhausted by it. Oddly enough, it is like a pilot getting through
1:13:33 really intense turbulence, where on the ground, the pilot’s going to earn my wings today. You
1:13:37 don’t earn your wings by a smooth flight. This is going to be hard left. Okay, do it.
1:13:44 I’m curious how or if any of it will tie in. You mentioned being a postdoc at one point,
1:13:51 I believe, and my understanding is you worked with a number of people who had eating disorders.
1:13:56 What did you learn from that experience? What were you studying? What were you working on?
1:14:01 Yeah, I got my PhD from Columbia. Then in my postdoc year, I worked with
1:14:07 college students and grad students who were students at Columbia. I did a specialty in the
1:14:12 eating disorder group there, so I saw a good number of eating disorder clients. I had an
1:14:18 eating disorder in high school. I think through that, and I’d been in recovery for a while,
1:14:22 I also just started to put more pieces together. A couple things I learned.
1:14:31 Our body has this remarkable way to act out conflict if we don’t understand it and resolve it.
1:14:36 This is a lot of what anorexia and bulimia are, things that we don’t understand,
1:14:41 things that live kind of unformulated, we’re conflicted about, and the body expresses it in
1:14:46 these horrible, somatic ways through an eating disorder, through so many other things too.
1:14:53 But as an example, and this is not true for everyone, but often anorexia is this kind of conflict
1:14:59 around your relationship with anger and taking up space in the world. It’s kind of amazing,
1:15:04 like in anorexia, you both take up so much space because you get everyone’s attention,
1:15:11 and you take up no space. You shrink into a prepubescent version of yourself.
1:15:17 That conflict is being kind of represented in your body. I think bulimia, how much can I want?
1:15:22 Is it okay to want things for myself? Can I want things? What is my relationship with desire?
1:15:26 I actually think anorexia and bulimia have a lot to do with your relationship with wanting
1:15:32 and desire, especially as a woman. Is there anything that you took from that experience,
1:15:42 questions, lenses, insight that also transferred over to some of the work that you do now? Or is
1:15:48 it sort of looking, I guess, leading the witness of it, but is it like looking at the thing below
1:15:54 the thing below the thing? Is that what it has in common with what you do now, or are there other
1:16:01 things? I think yes. That’s the second part of that question. What is really underneath people’s
1:16:08 behavior? That’s always really driven me. It’s why I became a psychologist. Why do good people
1:16:16 do things that work against them? Why do good kids act out and lie and do these things? Why do good
1:16:20 parents scream and get into these kind of quick, fixed cycles, even though they don’t want to
1:16:25 do that? I think I have, again, it’s like the curiosity over judgment. I’ve always been really
1:16:32 curious about that. Then I guess through especially my work with people who had intense eating
1:16:36 disorders. This was true when I was in private practice too and worked with teens who were really
1:16:45 struggling. I think I really understood and saw how desperate they were, like a very sturdy leader
1:16:50 who could make good decisions when they couldn’t, and how they’ll say all the things on the surface
1:16:55 that make it seem like they can be in control, but really they’re deeply struggling and they’re
1:17:01 deeply in pain. I think that probably helped me see kids struggle in pain underneath their
1:17:06 disruptive behaviors. Reflecting back on my childhood, I have a younger brother,
1:17:15 and the brother stuff. He would try to get me in trouble, or I’d wrestle him and beat
1:17:22 him up. It wasn’t malicious necessarily, but there were definitely times when he’d be screaming,
1:17:26 like, “Mom, Tim is hitting me,” and then she’d run into the room and he’d be in the room by
1:17:33 himself. I wouldn’t say he was struggling. He was being mischievous. Maybe there’s
1:17:40 something underneath it, but it seems like kids have this burgeoning sense of agency,
1:17:45 and sometimes they’re troublemakers or do things that they know are wrong.
1:17:53 I’m wondering how you handle some of those situations, because you could try to develop a
1:17:59 narrative around the feeling or the pathology underneath it, but I guess maybe at face value,
1:18:03 perhaps there are instances where kids are just doing stuff they know is wrong because it’s fun
1:18:08 or whatever. What do you do in those type of instances, or how do you think about them?
1:18:11 Let’s see more specific. Your brother’s saying, “Tim hit me,” but you didn’t. He’s lying.
1:18:15 Is that the situation? That’s an example. It doesn’t weigh heavy on my conscience,
1:18:20 but it was annoying. When I look at his personality as an adult, it’s like, “Yeah,
1:18:23 he’s playful and kind of a prankster.” Like, “Sister of the pot?”
1:18:28 Yeah, like, “Sister of the pot” is very, very smart, but I’m like, “Yeah, it makes sense.”
1:18:34 I would say I definitely don’t think my approach is about pathologizing things or even always seeing
1:18:38 the feeling underneath. I actually think what’s core is this idea, and I’m going to say it again,
1:18:43 but I really think it’s so different from how we usually intervene that it is worth repeating,
1:18:51 that you have a good kid underneath whatever is happening there. So, okay, why is my good kid
1:18:57 stirring the pot? And my third kid is like this. I mean, the stuff. And the fact that he’s my third,
1:19:01 me and my husband always say we delight in him because I think we’re less worried,
1:19:06 he will do stuff like, “Hey, why do all the bathrooms smell like pee?” And we just knew
1:19:09 we should ask him. I just knew I should ask him. So, when he was like five, he literally goes,
1:19:17 “Oh, well, I just thought it would be funny in every bathroom to first pee into the garbage can
1:19:23 and then dump it into the toilet. That might be why.” First of all, I just tried to stop myself
1:19:28 from laughing. I’m like, “That is actually so funny.” Like, you also didn’t tell anyone for days.
1:19:32 You just were entertaining yourself. It’s just funny. And I go, “Can you not do that
1:19:37 anymore?” He’s like, “Yeah, no problem.” And he never did it again. Okay. No, I think it’s really
1:19:41 easy to be like, “What is, like, my kid’s a psychopath. Like, what are you doing?” Right?
1:19:46 But I think for me, and maybe it’s because my third, what did I do? I think actually the most
1:19:50 underutilized strategy in parenting, and this sounds like a joke, but I do want to name it
1:19:56 to make it official, is doing nothing. Is doing nothing. Because you know what helped me do nothing?
1:20:03 I have a good kid. Did something actually really smart and funny. That’s just funny,
1:20:07 and he’s entertaining himself. Like, I see him as a 20-year-old in college. I know exactly who
1:20:12 he’s going to be. And I kind of know over time, I can, like, rein it in. And it’s not like he does
1:20:16 that, like, in the middle of the kindergarten classroom, you know? In the airport, yeah.
1:20:21 But he’s maybe like your brother. He thinks funny things. He’s industrious. He comes up with his own
1:20:26 plans, you know? And I think the idea, wait, I have this good kid. Like, I don’t have to take
1:20:32 this all so seriously. Maybe I can trust myself to know when this veers into the domain of, like,
1:20:37 really bad or too much. And maybe actually what I do is just say, “Hey, can you not do that again?”
1:20:44 And maybe I know my son is always going to be a kid, looking to kind of push the envelope.
1:20:48 Knowing that about him means I’m less surprised. I can set up boundaries a little differently.
1:20:52 And I can actually, and this is what I think is missing a lot, and it goes back to knowing your
1:20:59 kid’s a good kid. I can delight in him. Delighting in your kid is so important as a parent. Your
1:21:05 kids feel that. And it changes. And it doesn’t make behavior okay, all of it. But that element,
1:21:10 and I think that’s what’s missing when we’re in really bad cycles. We love our kid, but we actually
1:21:14 really stop liking them. We don’t even realize that. And that’s really painful for everyone.
1:21:22 I want to ask a question also from my employee I mentioned earlier, which I was very curious
1:21:32 about myself, which is, if your kid is hanging out with other kids who are bad influences,
1:21:36 what does an intervention look like? And I think my parents actually did a very good job
1:21:40 on this with me, but it was simpler in a sense because no smartphones,
1:21:47 we were living in a rural area. So if I wanted to hang out in our little downtown and get into
1:21:52 stupid trouble with a bunch of troublemakers, it’s actually quite difficult. It’s too far away
1:21:58 from you to bike, and they held the keys to the car, etc., etc. But they were good with certain
1:22:03 things that I hated, like curfews for coming back from hanging out downtown after a movie or
1:22:07 something, which was in retrospect very, very smart because a lot of those people ended up
1:22:14 in jail, OD-ing, etc., etc. They would not have been good influences. What is the move? What does
1:22:18 it look like? So there’s a lot of degrees here. Only apparent listening is saying, okay, when I
1:22:22 say bad influence, yeah, like there’s stuff that feels legitimately dangerous. My kid’s older,
1:22:27 there’s, I don’t know, there’s drugs. I can give you a specific example for a younger kid. Great.
1:22:36 Okay. So I noticed when I was a kid, I’m very sensitive to animals. And there were a few
1:22:43 boys who legitimately liked torturing animals, like they liked inflicting damage on animals.
1:22:50 And as far as I’m concerned, that’s just not a good trait. But it’s like, okay, so some kids,
1:22:54 you know, fucking with frogs or squirrels or whatever, pee in trash can.
1:22:59 No, no, like, like mutilating animals is a step beyond peeing in the trash can.
1:23:00 I would say so.
1:23:08 But that kid is also like, maybe fine in school, well-behaved, etc., etc. And so you’re like,
1:23:14 that kid seems to have zero empathy. Like, that’s not even, not even registering on any scale.
1:23:17 I don’t really want my kid to be around that.
1:23:23 Totally. So let’s again, go to Grease. So torturing animals, that’s like kind of a known concerning
1:23:27 trait in a child amongst psychologists, right? It’s part of like a triad, you would say.
1:23:29 Yeah, good grooming for serial killers.
1:23:34 So that’s definitely concerning. So that would probably be the same almost level to me as a
1:23:38 parent is, oh, my kid is hanging out with kids. So again, I think there’s legitimate danger.
1:23:41 And that stuff I don’t think the parents even have visibility into, unfortunately.
1:23:45 So there I think one of the things you say to your kid, and I’ve now said this a bunch of times
1:23:50 in this conversation, my number one job is to keep my kids safe. That is such a powerful thing to
1:23:55 remind yourself. Now, safe doesn’t mean risk free. It doesn’t mean I keep my kid in a bubble,
1:24:03 but keep my kids safe. And so I’m not going to let my kid hang out with kids who, again,
1:24:06 it’s not like they have bad manners. It’s not like they do something that’s like a little
1:24:10 pushing the edge and funny like my son did. Like this is kind of where we would say is over the
1:24:14 line. So what would I say to my kid? Hey, I want to go hang out with person X and Y. Listen, sweetie,
1:24:18 this is part of a bigger conversation. This is where this line helps so much.
1:24:24 My number one job is to keep you safe. And sometimes that means not hanging out with
1:24:30 certain kids who are doing really dangerous things. And I know as an adult that some of
1:24:35 what those kids are doing are dangerous. And so I’m not going to take you downtown to be with them.
1:24:39 Now, again, my kid’s probably going to be angry. I don’t have to say to them because I know my
1:24:46 role. But don’t you understand? I don’t like we really lower ourselves to our kids level.
1:24:52 Like I’m asking my seven year old to approve of my decision. Can you imagine a CEO being like,
1:24:57 we’re going through layoffs if they have to and they’re going to everyone’s desk. Is that okay?
1:25:01 Is that okay? That’s okay. That’s okay. Or a pilot being like, we have to make an emergency landing.
1:25:05 Everyone vote yes. I need everyone’s yes vote. Come on, don’t you understand? It’s like,
1:25:08 you just have to do the thing you need to do when you’re in a position of authority.
1:25:10 Just have to do your job.
1:25:14 Now, exactly. Do your job. There’s something else, though, that happens a lot. So maybe it’s not
1:25:19 animal cruelty. Right. I mean, another instance from when I was a kid, a lot of those kids had
1:25:25 to know getting into a lot of trouble later, whether it was going to jail, drugs, you name it.
1:25:32 They stole stuff and it was a small town. So people kind of knew like, these kids are bad
1:25:39 seeds. I mean, I know that’s a big label, but not a great influence to have around your kids.
1:25:46 Yeah. Yeah. So yes, again, I think that would fall under my role around the boundaries. My job
1:25:50 is to keep my kids safe. That doesn’t mean no risk. It literally does mean safe. That might
1:25:55 lead to hard decisions that my kids not happy with, but are part of my kind of being the true
1:26:01 authority and the adult my kid needs. I do think the emergency landing is the most helpful thing.
1:26:06 If my pilot said we’re making emergency landing and someone on the plane said,
1:26:09 “But wait, I have a really important podcast interview with Tim Ferriss.” And they’re like,
1:26:16 “You know what? Fine. Forget it.” Yeah. You don’t want that. Our kids are going to face tricky
1:26:23 situations. And again, every parent knows the line between safety versus kind of playground.
1:26:27 You can’t play with us. You’re a poopy head, right? Right. Right. And then I think it becomes a
1:26:34 little more nuanced there. One thing you said, doing your job doesn’t mean taking or exposing your
1:26:41 kids to zero risk. And it actually made me think of a friend of mine, different former special
1:26:48 forces guy, amazing guy. You’d never guess in a million years that maybe. Now, he’s not like
1:26:52 obvious. He’s not in your face. He’s more like a gray man for people to get the lingo. But
1:27:02 he has two daughters and he’s very jovial, fun guy. He’s very easy going. He’s as tough as you
1:27:08 would expect. But on the surface, like his interactions are very, he’s actually very soft.
1:27:16 But he ended up basically creating this game with his girls where each birthday they have
1:27:22 a birthday challenge. And it’s something that’s hard for them. And it goes up as they
1:27:27 get older. They get to choose like their 10 challenges. It’s kind of like having your
1:27:31 employees choose Oak Harris or whatever. So they got into rock climbing and then into like,
1:27:35 I’m going to do the cold plunge and the lake for this long. And then I’m going to do kettlebell
1:27:38 swings with this and this many of this and that. The other thing. So for those people who’ve ever
1:27:44 seen the movie Hannah, he’s basically training both of his girls to be Hannah, which is like
1:27:51 training this guy’s daughter, Eric Bennis, the actor to be Jason Bourne. But he has inoculated
1:27:57 them against a lot of types of fear by expanding their exposure to all of these different stressors
1:28:03 and kind of making a game of it. And they do fail at points, but they get to contend with failure
1:28:12 and then recover from it. I’m wondering if you proactively have done that with your own kids or
1:28:18 how you facilitate exposing kids to this broad range of emotional experience that when they get
1:28:25 into the quote unquote real world, they’re not fragile. Yes. Yes. Antifragility is definitely
1:28:32 big, big goal. I guess I think that I don’t often have to insert that as much as I have to be
1:28:37 mindful of not removing it. There’s a lot of opportunities for kids to be frustrated,
1:28:42 to take on challenges. I mean, we’re really talking about feeling uncomfortable.
1:28:46 Right. So don’t do their job for them. Not doing their job for them and not
1:28:52 narrowing the range of their resilience. Right. If my kid is only resilient when they get the job
1:28:56 and have an easy project and go to a dinner where all their friends are and get driven there and
1:29:00 there’s never any traffic, they’re going to be in trouble, right? There will be a lot of trouble.
1:29:06 But we can’t expect them to expect anything different if that’s kind of been what we create
1:29:10 for them during their formative years. So here’s a good example. I’ll talk about my youngest.
1:29:15 This is the one who pees in the garbage can’t. This is my resilient rebel.
1:29:23 This kid already. He has something. He really is. He’s my kid who wanted to get money to get
1:29:28 a certain baseball card that my oldest son and he was going to the store and he didn’t have money
1:29:33 and he had two somewhat loose teeth and he pulled them both out by the end of the day
1:29:37 because he figured he could get money from the tooth fairy. Yeah.
1:29:42 And he did and I was like, wow. Smart kid, industrious. Yes, very industrious.
1:29:46 Hi, tolerance for pain. But I think he wanted to play sports and he’s my third so he’s been
1:29:51 playing for a while. He tried out. He made two teams for different sports where he knew nobody.
1:29:57 He knew no kids. To me, this is such an amazing life experience. Joining a team where you know
1:30:04 nobody and I would say in both teams, he’s not on the stronger end. That’s a really powerful life
1:30:09 experience in terms of, again, the capability you will build. We think our kids are going to
1:30:12 find the capability before and then we get frustrated. Come on, you can do it. It’s not a
1:30:18 big deal. Everybody in life finds capability after surviving. Not even after thriving.
1:30:22 Just after surviving something hard. The capability is on the other side. You can’t expect
1:30:27 someone to access it before. You just have to tolerate the before. Now, I think it could be
1:30:31 easy to remove that. I’m going to make sure I call a friend to join the team with you.
1:30:36 Right? And in some ways, we take our own anxiety and we add it. You know what I mean?
1:30:40 Versus, I really felt like my job. To me, here’s such a powerful line. I remember before he went
1:30:44 to his first basketball practice and this team happened to be a team that they already knew
1:30:49 each other for a year. Not only did he know no one, there was some really nervous. I said,
1:30:53 “That makes sense. I almost feel nervous if you weren’t nervous.”
1:31:01 Make sense you’re nervous to do something new. Yeah. Right? Then after, we walked home and he
1:31:05 said, “I think when they introduced everyone, I felt better.” I said, “You’ll probably be a
1:31:09 little less nervous at next practice, but you probably also will be a little nervous.” I think
1:31:14 this idea of when we build our kids’ capability, your friend who has all those challenges, that
1:31:18 sounds amazing. There’s all different ways to do things in different families. I guess for me,
1:31:23 I see with my kids, there’s so many opportunities in life. I should say it’s not like the linchpin of
1:31:29 his parent. He’s actually just super active with his kids and role models it. To me, one of the most
1:31:34 important things for building capability and anti-fragility is actually this idea of validation
1:31:41 capability. This is hard and I can do it. Often when you do only one with a kid, it backfires.
1:31:46 We’ll be like, “This is really hard. It makes sense. You’re nervous about practice.” We just
1:31:51 live in that world and sometimes our kid feels like, “You’re validating my emotions, but I’m just
1:31:56 kind of building my anxiety.” We leave that out and we do the opposite. It’s no big deal. It’s
1:31:58 just a basketball team. You’re going to be fine. Kids have been doing basketball forever.
1:32:03 That’s often not great. We think that’s like building resilience. The lack of validation
1:32:08 doesn’t help your kid cope with the emotion and so it’s also not that helpful. Both is really
1:32:13 powerful. It makes sense that you’re nervous and you’re a kid who can do hard things. It makes
1:32:17 sense you’re not sure how this is going to go when you’re feeling a little uneasy and I just
1:32:21 know five minutes in, it’s going to feel a little easier. That idea that I can see my kid where they
1:32:27 are and I can almost see a more capable version of them than they can access. By the way, I think
1:32:32 great CEOs do this too. This is a hard project and I know you’re the one to figure it out.
1:32:38 Or good partners. Or good partners. Yeah. That’s right. I’ll give a public thanks to my ex. She
1:32:42 was very, very good at all this type of communication and perspective taking,
1:32:47 so she was able to teach this whole dog some new tricks, which have stuck and it’s been incredibly
1:32:54 valuable. Have you had any personal sort of parenting slips that you learned a lot from?
1:32:59 Because one of the questions I often ask, so I’m force fitting it a little bit here, but it might
1:33:04 work is, do you have a favorite failure? Meaning something that didn’t turn out the way you hoped
1:33:09 or it was a mess, whatever, but it ended up teaching you so much that in the long term,
1:33:17 it was beneficial. I hear my daughter’s voice in this moment saying, “I started good inside for
1:33:24 you.” The reason she says that is because I had my first kid and at this point, I also had my
1:33:28 private practice and my first kid definitely had his meltdowns. He had his difficult moments,
1:33:33 but there was something relatively linear, relatively about his development where he did
1:33:37 the thing, “Okay, oh, you’re so upset. You’re going to figure it out. I’m here with you. No,
1:33:41 you can’t have that truck. I’m holding it. I’m keeping you safe.” He kind of responded in
1:33:46 kind. Then I have all these people in my practice saying, “Dr. Becky, I’m doing the things you’re
1:33:50 saying, but I swear they’re making everything worse. It’s making everything worse. It’s not working.”
1:33:55 Even though I, in general, like curiosity over judgment in the back of my head, I was thinking
1:33:59 what anyone would think. You’re just not doing it right. No, you’re not doing it right. That’s
1:34:05 all. Moving on. Then actually, in these sessions would make me have to innovate. I’m like, “Okay,
1:34:09 well, that’s not working. I kind of do love problems and thinking through things like, “Try this. Try
1:34:15 this.” Then I had my second kid. I feel like after a year and a half, I remember being like,
1:34:20 “I need to call all of those people that I was secretly judging.” It’s like, “Oh my god. I know
1:34:26 what you’re talking about because I am watching myself do the thing I was telling you to do
1:34:31 when I was doing my son. I’m watching my kid scream or by the time she’s old enough to talk,
1:34:36 be like, “Stop talking. I hate you.” I was like, “What are you talking about? I’m being an amazing
1:34:44 parent right now. Why are you saying that?” I would say for a number of months, I really mean
1:34:53 this. It was a dark place. What is going on? What is my kid? Why can’t I give to her the way I know
1:35:00 I can show up for my other one? Then I feel like after that period, this is usually what happens,
1:35:05 I feel overwhelmed. Then I have this thing I say to myself when I’m feeling really overwhelmed and
1:35:10 like full of self-blame and pity where I say, “Okay, Becky, wash yourself in it. Fully embrace it.
1:35:15 You’re horrible. Everything’s horrible. Go all the way to the extreme.” I’m going to go to sleep
1:35:18 and I say, “Tomorrow I’m going to turn it into fire because there’s a lot of energy
1:35:22 and feeling awful and overwhelmed. If you can allow yourself to embrace it
1:35:26 and not fight it, then I feel like there’s a day where you can use all of that for something
1:35:31 productive.” I feel like that’s what I did. I started to connect these crazy dots in my head.
1:35:34 I was like, “Okay, so there are all these families out there who are telling me the same
1:35:39 thing I’m seeing with my kid. These kids, when you try to talk to them about their feelings,
1:35:46 even in the best way, they explode. Their meltdowns are animalistic, hissing, growling,
1:35:52 like really intense. They act like a caged animal.” Then I thought about probably 30%
1:35:58 of the adults I was seeing in private practice for really deep therapy. The struggles I had
1:36:02 in adulthood, a lot of fear of abandonment, a lot of emotion dysregulation, a lot of really
1:36:09 low self-worth. It was crazy to him. I was like, “Oh my God, they were all my daughter and they were
1:36:14 all those kids.” I saw this whole thing and it led to this body of work where with the adults,
1:36:21 I was doing this really deep therapy, going back to some moments and really reworking them
1:36:27 in this experiential way. They would tell me things. I’m not joking that I would then do
1:36:35 with my daughter. Could you give an example? Here’s an example. Your kid has this meltdown
1:36:39 and some parents listen and be like, “Yeah, my kid has meltdowns.” I’m not talking about
1:36:43 the run-of-the-mill meltdown. I am talking about it truly.
1:36:44 The exorcist.
1:36:49 The exorcist. It’s animalistic because these kids, and I call them deeply feeling kids,
1:36:55 they experience their feelings as threats. If your feeling is a threat in your own body,
1:37:00 think about what you would do to get rid of it. You have to expel it onto someone. They’re so
1:37:06 porous to the world that they get overwhelmed more easily and they fear being overwhelmed and then
1:37:11 they fear they’re going to overwhelm you. Basically, with these kids, their shame sits so close to
1:37:17 their vulnerability. Whenever they feel vulnerable, shame makes it explosive. Then when you try to
1:37:22 get close, like, “Hey, I’m here for you,” or, “Hey, you’re mad. It’s too close.” They actually do.
1:37:28 It sounds so existential, but they fear that they are toxic and then they will make you toxic.
1:37:34 They say things like, “Get out. I hate you. Leave me alone.” Then as parents, we kind of
1:37:38 take the bait, “Fine. I’m just trying to help.” Then we leave these kids alone. They’re completely
1:37:43 10 out of 10 dysregulated and then they basically learn, “See, I really am as bad and toxic as I
1:37:49 worried I was.” We see this all the time in adulthood. It acts itself out. This is a good
1:37:55 example of what came from this most amazing adult I worked with forever. We went back to this moment
1:37:57 when our child didn’t work out and she’d be in her room because these kids would be in their room
1:38:03 and they’re out of control, screaming at a parent, “Get out.” Kids are oriented by attachment,
1:38:08 which is a system of proximity. When they say, “Get out,” not calmly, we all say,
1:38:11 “Get out.” Someone’s like, “Sure, I’ll get out,” but they are not in a place to be making a decision.
1:38:15 What they’re really saying is, “I’m so terrified. I’m going to terrify you. I’m so terrified,
1:38:20 therefore I’m bad because if I terrify you so much that you can’t even be near me,
1:38:23 I’m a vulnerable kid that basically means I’m not going to survive because I need your
1:38:29 attachment to survive.” I remember going through what she needed in that moment. I remember going
1:38:35 through this visual of this wise adult being in her room with her, “Stay,” even though she screamed,
1:38:39 “Get out,” because I always say with deeply feeling kids when they’re in that 10 out of 10 state,
1:38:45 their words are not their wishes, they’re their fears. Honestly, all of us, most of us.
1:38:48 That’s a really interesting reframe. Can you say that one more time?
1:38:53 When we’re completely out of control and overwhelmed and we scream things out in that state,
1:39:00 our words are not our wishes, our words are our fears. I think even the visual, if you have a kid
1:39:04 like this, what they’re screaming, they’re actually screaming to their feelings, not to you.
1:39:09 “Get out. Leave me alone.” I have the chills like they’re not talking to a parent, they’re talking
1:39:14 to these terrifying sensations in their body. We went through this, this visual, and I’m in
1:39:18 the room visually with her. You’re doing this with your client?
1:39:22 This is an adult, exactly. This is what helps me so much with deeply feeling kids.
1:39:26 One of the things, I’m just giving you one example. I was like, “Okay, so I don’t remember if it was
1:39:32 her mom or just some sturdy adult who wasn’t seeming scared of her.” I said, “So she’s standing at the
1:39:38 door with you.” I remember this woman saying, “She’s not standing. She has to be sitting.”
1:39:44 And I kind of explored that in the imagery, which is if she’s standing, I just believe she’s about
1:39:49 to leave. I don’t believe she’s committed to this, so she’s sitting at the door. I’m like,
1:39:53 “Okay, so she’s sitting at the door.” This goes into so much more about deeply feeling kids,
1:39:56 that in these moments, they need containment. They literally need to be with you in a smaller
1:40:00 space because they’re so fearful of how their feelings come out of them and take up all the
1:40:04 space that they need to essentially have us hold space with them. Your feelings only go
1:40:09 this far and I’m sitting with you at the door. I would never let you kill both of us, so my
1:40:14 sitting here with you is almost a way of saying, “You are not so bad and awful and toxic after all,
1:40:22 and if I cannot be scared of this, one day you will not.” And every fucking time when you do this,
1:40:26 and it’s more details than just this, your kid will end by crawling over to you like a dog
1:40:32 and coming into your lap for a hug because that’s exactly what they need. But that idea that you
1:40:38 can’t even be standing, I kind of knew in these moments she was screaming, “Get out!” I was like,
1:40:41 “You’re not in a place to be making good decisions for yourself.” It would be like if
1:40:46 my kid was trying to cross New York City Street, completely out of control, like, “Don’t hold my
1:40:50 hand. You’re about to die in our incoming traffic. Like, there’s something deeper. I’m going to hold
1:40:56 you.” And I knew I had to be in the room, but I remember as soon as my client told me this thing
1:41:01 about sitting down, I remember with my own daughter and talking to clients. I had all these clients
1:41:05 at the time who had these kids because I was kind of getting these referrals from these kids labeled
1:41:10 as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, difficult, dramatic, all of these diagnoses. I was like,
1:41:16 “Wow, Oppositional Defiant Disorder. You cannot like a child who you label as Oppositional Defiant.”
1:41:19 And we were all trying these things, and everyone at the same time was sitting down
1:41:26 and kind of imagining yourself in this just really sturdy way. It shortened the meltdown
1:41:33 by like 90%. And again, that came directly from my work. I think so many of my best interventions
1:41:38 come from actually the work I did with adults, understanding what adults needed when they were
1:41:44 kids and reverse engineering that to today’s parents. Fascinating example. And I can envision it.
1:41:48 I can see it working. I suppose I’ve used different words for it, but a friend of mine recently
1:41:54 recommended a book to me, which was something like “The Highly Sensitive Person” or something
1:41:58 like that because what I say to people for myself, and I was like, “This is a kid too,” is like,
1:42:07 “My senses are very, very sensitive, very porous, and it can be incredibly overwhelming sometimes,
1:42:16 and I become better at using that and managing it. But as a kid, I mean, forget about it. Different
1:42:21 story.” Well, you’re probably what I would say is a deeply-filling kid. Mine too. And I say to her,
1:42:27 you’re a super sensor because with these kids, I live in New York City, and we’d be getting near
1:42:31 the garage where we park our car, and she would not want to go into the garage. The smells of
1:42:38 even near the garage so easy as a parent to say something to a kid like, “You’re so crazy. What
1:42:41 are you talking about? It doesn’t smell any different outside here.” And if you think about
1:42:49 what you’re really doing is you’re saying to a kid, “I know how you feel better than you know
1:42:53 how you feel.” Now, again, the boundaries matter. Might there be a time, especially when she was
1:42:58 younger, where you’d say, “I get it. You smell it. It’s awful. You smell things. I don’t smell,
1:43:02 and I’m picking you up. I have to carry you in the garage.” That’s independent from my action.
1:43:09 But again, when we can’t separate those two, we usually say super invalidating things to DfKs.
1:43:13 We tell them they’re dramatic. We tell them they’re making a big deal out of nothing. The
1:43:18 principle of all human behavior is we all need to be believed. And so if you don’t get believed,
1:43:21 you escalate the expression of your behavior in desperation to be believed.
1:43:25 Then usually, people lead with more invalidation, which means you escalate behavior further
1:43:30 to try to get the original thing you were looking for. And with deeply feeling kids and parents,
1:43:36 that’s a cycle we really reverse. Yeah. Well, yeah, trip down memory lane. That’s wild.
1:43:41 I’ll send you the workshop. We have a lot of adults do it separate from their kids. It’s
1:43:47 all the same stuff. Yeah, it is all the same stuff. If you could put, metaphorically speaking,
1:43:53 a message on a billboard. It could be a quote, it could be an image, anything non-commercial,
1:44:00 just something to get out to a very large number of people. It could be a reminder, requests,
1:44:06 anything. Mantra that you find useful, anything at all. Can I pick more than one? Of course.
1:44:09 Not in the same billboard. I don’t know about the branding of all them at once,
1:44:13 but I have too many things. Yeah, you can definitely have a couple.
1:44:19 Okay, so I’m going to start with one that’s probably most linked to our conversation so far,
1:44:25 just my ultimate mantra. This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m doing
1:44:29 something wrong. And again, to me, the idea that we struggle, and it doesn’t mean it’s our fault,
1:44:35 is life changing. I remember during COVID when my kids were doing work and work from home,
1:44:39 when they were in school at home, that was the thing I put on their desks. And I think when
1:44:43 you’re talking about kids working on math or learning how to read, doing a puzzle,
1:44:47 or doing something at work, or managing your first conflict in your romantic relationship.
1:44:50 So you put it on their desk like a placard or like a little dry erase board?
1:44:54 I mean, I just like a post-it note. I took like a post-it note and wrote it
1:44:56 messily and just put it up there. And say it one more time.
1:45:00 This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m doing something wrong.
1:45:05 The difference between understanding something’s hard because it is versus thinking it’s hard
1:45:10 because basically you failed has massive life implications on what we’d be willing to take
1:45:13 on next as a challenge. Like, yeah, that’s just a hard math problem. If it feels hard,
1:45:17 that’s because you’re doing it right, because it’s supposed to be hard. Oh, I’m doing it right
1:45:21 versus I’m not good at math. I mean, it’s just remarkable, especially academically,
1:45:25 when kids are young, how powerful that is. If I could put something different on a billboard,
1:45:28 you’re sponsoring many branding campaigns. You have infinite billboard budget, yeah.
1:45:33 Okay, it would be one of two things. This is like different versions of a similar idea.
1:45:37 Parenting doesn’t come naturally. The only thing that comes naturally is how you were
1:45:43 parented or we were never meant to parent an instinct alone. The whole idea of maternal
1:45:48 instinct has had a profound impact on parents, profound and awful. And it’s not to say I don’t
1:45:54 think there’s some instinct in us. Obviously, I get that, but it would be like a doctor saying,
1:45:58 like, I didn’t go to medical school, like I have surgical instinct, surgical instinct,
1:46:02 and you’re like, yeah, I’m just not going to see you. And if your friend said that.
1:46:07 Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard pass. Right, it’s a hard pass. And it’s just so interesting that I
1:46:15 think we take learning seriously at every point in our lives. And then we get the job that’s the
1:46:23 hardest and most ongoing and most important job we’ll ever have. And we’re socialized to think
1:46:29 we’re supposed to be learning before like a CPR class, a pregnancy class. And then once your baby
1:46:34 is like one, the narrative I hear from parents, we hear this honestly, because that good insight I
1:46:38 think way more than trying to help you through a tantrum or trying to elevate parenting,
1:46:44 parenting deserves education, because that’s a good compliment with instinct. Like there are
1:46:49 things to learn, doesn’t come naturally. And I really, we have moms, especially all the time say,
1:46:56 I feel like it’s a sign I’m a failure. Which to me, I just don’t know anyone who goes to medical
1:47:00 school and says like, oh, I have to go to medical school to become a doctor. And like my friend who,
1:47:06 I don’t know, has a surgical instinct or I get my surgical tips on Instagram. And I think that’s
1:47:11 enough. You would say to a doctor, yeah, that’s cool. You want to stay up to date on some tips,
1:47:17 but you probably need a foundation. And I think this goes back to fault, you know, where it goes
1:47:23 back to how when we struggle, especially as women, we tend to think it’s our fault, instead of maybe
1:47:27 something more useful, like a little bit of anger of like, wow, the system is pretty stacked against
1:47:33 me. Nobody is setting me up to have clarity in my job, to know what to do and to actually feel
1:47:39 resourced and supported. And then I think we’d find parenting hard, but we wouldn’t find it as
1:47:44 impossible as we find it today. You said one of two things. Was there another variant? Just some
1:47:48 version of, pardon me, I like to be punchy. If I was going to put something on a billboard, I wanted
1:47:53 to create, you know, a conversation. So maybe I’d say something like, there’s no such thing as
1:47:59 maternal instinct. Not because I even fully believe that, but just to start a conversation
1:48:06 on the limitations of that framework. And I think the massive amount of shame it’s created,
1:48:14 especially for women. And shame leads to an animal defense freeze state, freeze. You don’t act.
1:48:18 So what’s kind of amazing and fucked up is if you can convince women that they should be able to
1:48:25 parent on maternal instinct alone, it’s just a great way of kind of ensuring moms forever feel
1:48:30 really bad about themselves and don’t talk about it. Yeah, that resonates. I mean, what do I know?
1:48:35 I don’t have kids, but just what I’ve seen with friends is there seems to be, certainly, there
1:48:42 are maternal instincts. For sure. Right? Just like some people may be better suited to empathy and
1:48:47 bedside manner as a surgeon, but you also want them to go to med school. Yeah, as I mean,
1:48:53 two things are true. Right. Two things are true. And what I’ve seen amongst, because there are all
1:48:59 these battles in the parenting discussions, right? Yes. There’s like the attachment parenting versus
1:49:05 the sleep training versus and man, oh man, these get intense. And I’m watching some of these things
1:49:15 because I’m curious. But if one of the stories that sometimes pops up is related to mothering
1:49:24 in different, let’s just say for simplicity, indigenous cultures, and what gets lost there is
1:49:31 overemphasized is the instinct and what that means and what you can rely on. What gets a little lost
1:49:40 is societally, as you said, how for a lot of women in industrialized western cities, let’s just say,
1:49:46 air westernized cities or certainly coastal US and a lot of places in those societies have
1:49:51 spent time in Ethiopia and all over South America and so on. It’s like from a very young age,
1:49:57 they are being taught how to take care of kids in whatever way makes sense culturally in that
1:50:02 context. But it’s like from a very young age, like they’re getting training. That’s like being born
1:50:06 into like JIRA dreams of sushi. And it’s like, all right, you’re going to start with washing the
1:50:12 pots. I mean, like from a very, very early age, they’re being taught and getting a lot of practice,
1:50:19 which is just simply not the case for a lot of women these days. So it would seem to make a lot
1:50:26 of sense that they need to have the opportunity to be resourced, as you said. And I think the
1:50:31 resources, again, that I always want for parents extends so beyond just your interactions with
1:50:37 your kids, like learning to set real boundaries is life giving, like in every area of your life.
1:50:42 And I think that’s why when people are kind of involved in the good inside system for a while,
1:50:47 like when we interview users, it’s interesting after a while to say, oh, I asked for a raise for
1:50:52 the first time. My girlfriends from college always go away. And honestly, my partner always gives me
1:50:56 a hard time every year. And so I don’t forego. And for the first time, I realized, wait, Dr.
1:51:02 Becky, like you said, those are my partner’s feelings. I can care about them, but I don’t
1:51:06 have to take care of them. Meaning my partner can be upset and I can go on my trip. And then we
1:51:09 always say, like, what about those tantrums? Remember how you can’t, and they’re like, oh,
1:51:13 is that why I came in? Right? So I think what I want for parents and what I’d want to build
1:51:18 board also say is… Tantrums are the gateway truck. They are kind of, you know, we come,
1:51:26 our kids’ problems, they’re really a signal that probably there are so many opportunities for us
1:51:30 to learn things that are yes going to help them, but are going to end up helping us even more.
1:51:36 I want for parents, really, to feel like they do more than just put out the latest fire in their
1:51:44 home. So you are, and I love this about you, well known, as I mentioned, for your specific scripts,
1:51:49 your word for word scripts, even though the intention is to use them to highlight principles.
1:51:57 I understand that. What are your most requested, the fan favorites most requested as far as scripts?
1:52:01 What do I do when my kids are having a meltdown that I just totally don’t understand?
1:52:05 So what do I do when my kid’s freaking out about something I don’t understand?
1:52:10 Anything about boundaries and saying no? How do I say no to someone without feeling guilty?
1:52:15 How do I say no to my in-laws when they keep popping over or so? Anything about saying no
1:52:21 in boundaries and repair? Repair. Yeah, I feel really stuck and I just, I can’t get myself to
1:52:26 go to my kid’s room and say the thing. I always feel like a script is like a door opening.
1:52:29 Sometimes we need someone to open the door for us, and then when you get in the room,
1:52:32 I’m like, “Okay, I can do this.” That’s kind of what a script can give.
1:52:38 What specific boundary setting or saying no? Like within that subcategory,
1:52:43 what are the things that tend to come up the most? Honestly, almost always when I’m asked a
1:52:49 question, my answer is almost always reframing the question. How do I say no without someone getting
1:52:52 upset? I mean this with love, it’s just a bad question. It’s a bad question. It’s an impossible
1:52:57 question. How do I say no and tolerate someone being upset? It’s a great question. Love that question.
1:53:01 So I’ll shift to that. Usually when we feel stuck in life, it’s because we’re asking the wrong
1:53:04 questions, not because we don’t have the answers. 100%. But I think scripts that…
1:53:08 Because you can also get a great answer to the wrong question that can lead you astray.
1:53:14 Right? I always say, “Questions are roads you walk down.” To make sure the road is like the
1:53:18 destination you want to end in. Not kind of a cliff or something unproductive. And I’ll share
1:53:22 some of them here just because some of them are good to put out there. So how do I say no?
1:53:29 I think saying no well really comes from knowing your why and really being grounded more in your
1:53:34 experience than the other persons. The reason it’s hard for someone to say no is because they’ve
1:53:39 actually already vacated their body. And if it’s me, let’s say, here we are on Monday, but let’s say
1:53:42 you ask me, “Hey, can you do Monday at 3.30?” I’m like, “Oh, I really can’t.” For whatever reason,
1:53:45 oh my God, what is Tim going to think about me? Is Tim going to be really upset? What am I going
1:53:50 to say when Tim says that that’s the only time? You can’t say no from that place because your
1:53:55 no and setting a boundary comes from your place of authority. And if I’ve vacated my body and I’m
1:53:59 now spending all my time in Tim’s head, you’ve lost yourself. In your fantasy of…
1:54:03 You’ve lost your… In your fantasy, exactly. Tim’s probably like, “Why are you spending so
1:54:06 much time in my head? I would have just figured it out with you.” That’s what we do. So I think
1:54:10 step one is actually coming back to ourselves. Like, why am I saying no? Okay, I’m saying no
1:54:14 because I don’t know how to pick up my kids from school or whatever it is, right? It actually
1:54:19 becomes a lot more self-evident. I’m not able to make that time because whatever the reason is,
1:54:24 right? And then I think one of the best things with scripts when you’re saying no, naming your
1:54:31 intention, naming it, not just thinking it, is really helpful in communication. I’m really excited
1:54:37 about recording. I am unable to do this. I would love to find another time, right? Making it really,
1:54:42 really obvious what your intention is really does get in a helpful way. It prevents someone else
1:54:47 from misinterpreting it, from you thinking, “Oh, Becky just doesn’t want to be in my podcast,” right?
1:54:51 And it also makes me feel sturdier because I’m kind of connecting to you along the way.
1:54:55 One of the ways to think about boundaries and how to actually set them, because there’s a lot of
1:54:58 people who are like, “I know I want to set them, but it’s the holding and I just feel so uncomfortable
1:55:03 and my mom’s mad at me or my kid’s mad at me.” Okay, so right now we’re sitting on opposite sides
1:55:08 of the table, but imagine we’re on a tennis court. I’m on one side of the court behind the baseline
1:55:12 and you’re on the other side, but instead of a net, I don’t know, there’s like a glass wall,
1:55:17 so like I could see you, but whatever happens on your side would stay on your side. Okay.
1:55:23 The reason boundaries become hard to hold is because I’m on my side setting a boundary. So
1:55:27 maybe it’s saying to my mom, “Oh, you want to come over to see the kids? It doesn’t work for us. We
1:55:32 have to find another day.” Or maybe it’s saying to my kids, “Oh, TV time is over.” Or, “No, sweetie,
1:55:36 we’re here to buy a birthday present for your cousin, but I’m not going to buy anything else,
1:55:42 even though you see that thing you want.” That’s my boundary. And on your side is your feelings.
1:55:46 So if you’re my mom, you’re upset. And maybe your version of upset is
1:55:50 “guilting me who knows.” Right? And maybe if you’re my kid in the toy store, you’re upset,
1:55:53 probably your version is screaming meltdown or who knows what it is, right?
1:56:01 What we say to ourselves all the time is I can’t set boundaries. I feel so guilty, right? Okay.
1:56:08 In my mind, guilt is a feeling you have when you’re acting out of alignment with your values.
1:56:14 That’s why guilt is useful. If I yelled at a taxi on the way home tonight, I would feel guilty
1:56:18 because that’s not in my values to yell at anyone, definitely not someone trying to help me.
1:56:22 That guilt would make me reflect, “Huh, I wonder why I yelled. What could I have done differently?”
1:56:27 Useful. But it’s interesting when people say, “I set a boundary with my mom because I just need
1:56:31 the alone family time, but I feel guilty.” I said no to my kid because I don’t want to buy them
1:56:36 everything at a toy store and I feel guilty. It’s not guilt. It’s actually life changing. It’s not
1:56:42 guilt because you’re acting in alignment with your values. So then, if I ask the question,
1:56:49 “What is it?” It’s our tendency to see other people’s distress on their side of the tennis court.
1:56:56 And this usually happens in childhood. We learn, we kind of say, “I will take that for you. I will
1:57:02 take your upset and bring it to my body and put it in my body to kind of metabolize it for you,
1:57:10 and I will call it guilt.” But it’s not guilt. It is someone else’s feelings that you’re feeling
1:57:15 for them. And not only is that not good for you, it’s actually awful for the other person because
1:57:19 if you metabolize, let’s say, your kid’s feelings for them, they never learn to deal with the stress.
1:57:24 You can also never empathize because the only reason I can empathize is if I actually see
1:57:28 your feelings as yours. So I actually have to when I do this exercise at this workshop
1:57:32 or I’ll say to someone, “You have to give that feeling back to its rightful owner.”
1:57:37 So let’s say I take my kid to a toy store and I say to my friend, “I really do want to say no to
1:57:42 them, but I have the money and I feel so guilty.” And even though I want to say no, okay, but now
1:57:47 maybe it’s not guilt. How do I deal with that? What happens is you’re on one side of the tennis
1:57:54 court and your kid’s frustration, distress kind of starts to come over. And instead of going
1:57:58 and hitting against the gospel and going back to them, which by the way is what you want,
1:58:01 you need people’s feelings to say on their side of the court.
1:58:05 It kind of comes over to me. I’m like, “I can’t.” What you have to do is actually
1:58:10 must put your hands up and like push it back. And actually the visual is powerful. That’s my kid.
1:58:16 Or my mom is upset. She can’t come over. If I actually think about it, that makes sense.
1:58:20 I’m allowed to say no and they’re allowed to be upset is like a great life mantra.
1:58:26 They’re equally true. No one’s a bad person. My mom is not a bad person for feeling upset
1:58:31 that she can’t see her grandkid. I am not a bad person for saying the time doesn’t work for me.
1:58:38 Those two things just happen not to kind of be in line with each other. So I have to hold them
1:58:43 at the same time. They’re both true. Neither is wrong and neither is more true than the other.
1:58:49 And if you see your mom’s feelings as real, ironically now you can actually empathize with her.
1:58:53 Because as long as you’re taking on the feelings, you can empathize. You’re responding to your mom
1:58:56 to take care of your own feelings that weren’t yours. You’re putting yourself in the washing
1:59:01 machine as opposed to looking through the glass at what’s inside the washing machine. That’s right.
1:59:05 And so holding boundaries, you get better when you picture that tennis court and you start to
1:59:09 ask yourself, “Am I really feeling guilt? It’s probably not. Can I give that person’s feelings
1:59:14 back?” And then empathy actually helps you hold a boundary. “I get it, Mom. You wish you could
1:59:18 come over.” “I know. I’d be upset if I were you too.” “Oh, does that mean I can come over?”
1:59:22 “No, it doesn’t. I’m just saying I understand.” So that visual, I think, is powerful. Tennis court.
1:59:30 We have just a few minutes until our time. And I thought I would just open the floor
1:59:36 to ask you if there are any things we didn’t touch upon that you’d like to mention,
1:59:42 if there are any requests of my audience, my listeners, any reminders, closing thoughts,
1:59:48 anything at all that you’d like to add. And people can certainly find Good Inside at GoodInside.com
1:59:55 and we’ll link to all your socials as well, Instagram, Dr. Becky @GoodInside, I believe.
1:59:59 And we’ll put all these in the show notes. Of course, the book, Good Inside, A Guide to
2:00:03 Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, we’ll link to the TED Talk. We will link to all
2:00:08 the goodies in the show notes. But is there anything else that you’d like to
2:00:16 mention? No. I mean, I think that I find learning and reflection to be really such a brave endeavor.
2:00:21 I really, really do because if you’re thinking about yourself or you’re thinking about why we do
2:00:26 the things the way we do, or, “Oh, maybe I do want to intervene differently,” there’s probably someone
2:00:31 at this point saying, “Maybe my kid is a deeply feeling kid. Should I go learn more about that?”
2:00:36 And I feel like that’s very brave because to do that, you’re going to be confronted by feelings
2:00:41 of like, “Oh, shoot. I’m going to do that.” And we all have wondering questions of, “Did I
2:00:46 mess my kid up?” Which you didn’t. But we wonder it and then we feel upset. And then to kind of push
2:00:53 forward and say, “Okay, I’m going to tolerate those feelings in the pursuit of finding something
2:00:58 that’s going to end up feeling better to me,” I just find it very admirable and increasingly hard
2:01:02 to do in today’s world that we’re all oriented around short-term convenience and gratification.
2:01:07 So for anyone listening at this point, I just want to say thank you. I want to say there’s
2:01:11 probably a lot of tolerance of uncomfortable emotions along the way. There’s no one we care
2:01:15 about in the world in the way that we care about our kids. We’re so invested in it. So thinking
2:01:20 about getting support, thinking about taking a workshop or getting a resource. On some level,
2:01:23 it seems like, “Well, yeah, it’s the person I care the most about. I’m going to do that.”
2:01:28 But there is this pull away, like, “Ooh, I don’t know if I want to look at something.” And so the
2:01:32 people who are willing to do that, I just think that’s my type of people and I love people who
2:01:36 can do hard things. So I want to say thank you. And then the thing I want to hold right next to
2:01:40 that is everything I said today, and I should have said that’s in the beginning. I myself
2:01:46 definitely do not do 100% of the time as a parent. And it really matters to me that people know that.
2:01:50 Number one, just because it’s true and I don’t want to misrepresent myself. But there’s no
2:01:55 perfect parent. Kids don’t need a perfect parent. That would, again, be weird if we said our kid
2:02:00 to think that their most important relationships down the road are going to be with people who are
2:02:04 always perfectly attuned to their every feeling and need. That would be very counterproductive.
2:02:11 And so, again, maybe we end with what we begin with is the most powerful relationship strategy I
2:02:17 believe we have in any relationship is repair. It’s our willingness to go back, to take responsibility,
2:02:21 to say, hey, I wish I handled that differently, to then hopefully actually do a little bit of the
2:02:26 investigation or resourcing. We need to actually do it differently. But I want to leave parents or
2:02:31 any listener with that. There’s nothing more powerful than repair. There’s nothing as important
2:02:36 to get good at as repair, which also means you have to mess up. Because the only way you can repair
2:02:43 is if you did mess up. And so, I just want to leave people with that more kind of balanced human note
2:02:48 because that’s the thing I usually hold on to myself. And for people who are curious, they
2:02:56 want to explore the world of good inside. And Dr. Becky Kennedy, where would you suggest they start
2:03:02 in terms of dipping a toe in the water? Let’s just for the purpose of applying some constraints.
2:03:07 Somebody who doesn’t, maybe they don’t have the ability or the financial resources to go to
2:03:12 like an extended workshop or something like that. Where might they start? Let’s say go to your local
2:03:17 library and kind of request the book. If it’s not in, definitely get on the request list for
2:03:22 Good Inside. I would say come to goodinside.com and sign up for our emails. I’m bursting with
2:03:27 new thoughts all the time and I always need containers for them. So one container is our email
2:03:33 or kind of weekly thoughts for me. On Thursdays, I send out Instagram, my own podcast. I should
2:03:37 say I’m on a podcast now. Podcast listeners usually listen to other podcasts. So maybe that’s
2:03:42 best. That’s just called Good Inside. We try to keep it simple. And goodinside.com is kind of the
2:03:46 home for everything we do. And then I would say if your kid is… I love to help people whose
2:03:49 kids aren’t just struggling. It’s kind of like waiting to go to marriage counseling until you’re
2:03:56 like in a problem. It’s never the best, but a lot of us wait. I really think of our resources
2:04:01 inside our app as, you know, about your kids and your own emotional wellness. I think we make that
2:04:06 very accessible, you know, compared to other emotional wellness resources. So that’s there too.
2:04:10 Well folks, there you have it. That is how you wade into the waters.
2:04:14 And I’m so happy we could have this conversation. Thank you for taking the time.
2:04:15 Thank you. That’s awesome.
2:04:20 And took a lot of notes for myself also. Best to be prepared. It might take a little while for me
2:04:28 to get the kiddos online, but that is the plan. And I really appreciate what you are teaching.
2:04:36 These toolkits are incredibly powerful. And as we have mentioned and alluded to multiple times
2:04:45 in this conversation, you can apply these things everywhere. It is not limited to your interactions
2:04:51 with your kids. And to everybody listening, thanks for sticking around. Thanks for tuning in.
2:04:58 And as always be just a bit kinder than is necessary until next time. That includes
2:05:03 other people, but that also includes yourself. And for links to everything we discussed,
2:05:11 you can find them in the show notes, tim.blog/podcast. And I’ll repeat myself, but thanks for tuning
2:05:17 in until next time. Take care. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take
2:05:22 off and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday
2:05:27 that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people
2:05:32 subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to
2:05:38 sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the
2:05:43 coolest things I’ve found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It’s kind of
2:05:48 like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums
2:05:54 perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on. They get sent to me by my friends,
2:06:00 including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field.
2:06:07 And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short,
2:06:11 a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.
2:06:15 If you’d like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser,
2:06:22 tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and you’ll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.
2:06:28 Way back in the day, in 2010, I published a book called The Four Hour Body, which I probably
2:06:35 started writing in 2008. And in that book, I recommended many, many, many things. First
2:06:43 generation continuous glucose monitor and cold exposure and all sorts of things that have been
2:06:49 tested by people from NASA and all over the place. And one thing in that book was athletic greens. I
2:06:55 did not get paid to include it. I was using it. That’s how long I’ve been using what is now known
2:07:02 as AG1. AG1 is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. And I just packed up, for instance, to go off the
2:07:07 grid for a while. And the last thing I left out on my countertop to remember to take, I’m not
2:07:14 making this up, I’m looking right in front of me, is travel packets of AG1. So rather than taking
2:07:18 multiple pills or products to cover your mental clarity, gut health, immune, and out of energy,
2:07:23 and so on, you can support these areas through one daily scoop with AG1, which tastes great,
2:07:28 even with water. I always just have it with water. I usually take it first thing in the morning,
2:07:31 and it takes me less than two minutes. Honestly, it takes me less than a minute.
2:07:37 I just put in a shaker bottle, shake it up, and I’m done. AG1 bolsters my digestion and nutrient
2:07:43 absorption by including ingredients optimized to support a healthy gut in every scoop. AG1 in a
2:07:48 single-serve travel packs, which I mentioned earlier, also makes for the perfect travel
2:07:53 panion. I’ll actually be going totally off the grid. These things are incredibly, incredibly
2:07:57 space-efficient. You can even put them in a book, frankly. I mean, they’re kind of like bookmarks.
2:08:02 After consuming this product for more than a decade, I chose to invest in AG1 in 2021,
2:08:06 as I trust their no-compromise approach to ingredients we’re saying and appreciate the
2:08:13 focus on continuously improving one formula. They go above and beyond by testing for 950 or so
2:08:18 contaminants and impurities compared to the industry standard of 10. AG1 is also tested for
2:08:24 heavy metals and 500 various pesticides and herbicides. I’ve started paying a lot of attention
2:08:30 to pesticides. That’s a story for another time. To make sure you’re consuming only the good stuff,
2:08:35 AG1 is also NSF certified for sport. That means if you’re an athlete, you can take it.
2:08:39 The certification process is exhaustive and involves the testing and verification of
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2:08:50 There’s no better time than today to start a new healthy habit. This is an easy one. Wake up,
2:08:56 water in the shaker bottle, AG1, boom. So take advantage of this exclusive offer
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0:00:02 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs.
0:00:03 This is Tim Ferriss.
0:00:05 Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show.
0:00:10 This time around, instead of a long form interview deconstructing a world
0:00:13 class performer, I thought I would do something different.
0:00:17 This time around, I’m going to revisit the book that started at all.
0:00:19 What put me on the map, so to speak.
0:00:24 Way back in 2007, the four hour work week, it is completely nuts to think
0:00:29 that the 20th anniversary is just around the corner in a few years.
0:00:33 And many of you readers, many of you listeners often ask me what I would
0:00:38 change or update, but in my mind and equally, maybe more important question
0:00:40 is what wouldn’t I change?
0:00:44 What are the things that have stood the test of time that have not lost
0:00:47 any potency, the things that I revisit most often?
0:00:50 And this episode is intended to answer that.
0:00:53 It features three chapters from the audiobook of the four hour work week
0:00:55 that are time tested.
0:00:58 These are the things that have changed my life tremendously, that I continue
0:01:02 to use to improve my life, to get back on track.
0:01:06 They represent tools and frameworks that millions of you have read.
0:01:10 And I have seen hundreds and thousands of successful case studies.
0:01:11 They do work.
0:01:14 The chapters are narrated by the great voice actor Ray Porter.
0:01:19 And just as a quick review, a quick primer, the four hour work week
0:01:22 is written in four sections, each corresponding to a letter in the acronym
0:01:27 deal, which stands for definition, elimination, automation and liberation.
0:01:31 The chapters you’re going to hear are from the section D is for definition.
0:01:32 Why is this?
0:01:34 Well, first things first, it comes first.
0:01:38 If you want to craft your best life and your ideal lifestyle to do it proactively,
0:01:41 not reactively, these chapters should help.
0:01:42 It’s a very programmatic.
0:01:43 It lays it out.
0:01:47 If you want to maximize your per hour output, whether that’s four hours a week,
0:01:51 40 hours a week or 100 hours a week, the approaches are the same.
0:01:54 And definition is the most important first step.
0:01:57 So I really hope you enjoy them.
0:02:00 These are the bedrock of the four hour work week.
0:02:04 And they are timeless in part because I’ve borrowed a lot of these
0:02:07 from best practices elsewhere.
0:02:10 That’s why they have lasted so long because they started off lasting so long
0:02:11 and I selected them.
0:02:14 If you’re interested in checking out the rest of the audiobook,
0:02:17 which is produced and copyrighted by Blackstone Publishing,
0:02:21 you can find it on Audible, Apple, Google, Spotify, downpour.com
0:02:23 or wherever you find your favorite audiobooks.
0:02:27 And please, please, please let me know what you think of this format.
0:02:28 Do you like it?
0:02:29 Should I do more of it?
0:02:30 Should I not do it?
0:02:32 Should I do it in a different way?
0:02:35 I’m thinking of doing things not just with my own books
0:02:39 and offering additional thoughts, but with other books from other people.
0:02:40 So let me know.
0:02:46 Send me a note after you listen to this at T Ferris, T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S on Twitter.
0:02:49 That is X, of course.
0:02:54 And you can also leave a comment on the blog post associated
0:02:57 with this particular episode on Tim.blog.
0:03:00 And we’re going to get right to the meat and potatoes.
0:03:04 But before that, just a minute to hear a few quick words
0:03:06 from the people who make this podcast possible.
0:03:12 I have been fascinated by the microbiome and probiotics as well as prebiotics
0:03:16 for decades, but products never quite live up to the hype.
0:03:18 Now things are starting to change.
0:03:24 And that includes this episode’s sponsor, Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic.
0:03:27 I’ve always been very skeptical of most probiotics.
0:03:31 But after incorporating two capsules of Seeds DS01 into my morning routine,
0:03:35 I have noticed improved digestion and improved overall health.
0:03:38 So why is Seeds DS01 so effective?
0:03:41 For one, it is a two in one probiotic and prebiotic formulated
0:03:44 with 24 clinically and scientifically studied strains.
0:03:49 But if the probiotic strains don’t make it to the right place, they’re not as effective.
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0:03:56 that survives digestion and delivers a precision release of the live
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0:04:09 using code 25tim all put together.
0:04:14 One more time, seed.com/tim code 25tim.
0:04:20 As many of you know, for the last few years, I’ve been sleeping on a midnight lux mattress
0:04:21 from today’s sponsor, Helix Sleep.
0:04:27 I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite in a new guest bedroom,
0:04:31 which I sometimes sleep in and I picked it for its very soft but supportive feel
0:04:33 to help with some lower back pain that I’ve had.
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0:04:41 It is made with five tailored foam layers, including a base layer
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0:04:53 And with a luxurious pillow top for pressure relief,
0:04:56 I look forward to nestling into that bed every night that I use it.
0:05:00 The best part, of course, is that it helps me wake up feeling fully rested
0:05:04 with a back that feels supple instead of stiff.
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0:05:14 So go to helixsleep.com/tim to learn more.
0:05:18 So take a look with Helix Better Sleep starts now.
0:05:24 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:05:26 Can I ask you a personal question?
0:05:29 No, I would have seen it in a good meantime.
0:05:30 What if I get the ice?
0:05:34 I’m a cybernetics organism, living this year over a metal endoskeleton.
0:05:38 Me, Tim, Paris, Seoul.
0:05:46 Rules that change the rules.
0:05:50 Everything popular is wrong.
0:05:54 I can’t give you a surefire formula for success,
0:05:56 but I can give you a formula for failure.
0:05:59 Try to please everybody all the time.
0:06:03 Herbert Bayard Swope, American editor and journalist,
0:06:06 first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.
0:06:10 Everything popular is wrong.
0:06:14 Oscar Wilde, the importance of being earnest.
0:06:18 Beating the game, not playing the game.
0:06:24 In 1999, some time after quitting my second
0:06:27 unfulfilling job in eating peanut butter sandwiches for comfort,
0:06:33 I won the gold medal at the Chinese kickboxing Sanchu National Championships.
0:06:37 It wasn’t because I was good at punching and kicking, God forbid.
0:06:42 That seemed a bit dangerous, considering I did it on a dare and had four weeks of preparation.
0:06:47 Besides, I have a watermelon head. It’s a big target.
0:06:54 I won by reading the rules and looking for unexplored opportunities, of which there were two.
0:07:00 One, weigh-ins were the day prior to competition.
0:07:05 Using dehydration techniques commonly practiced by elite power lifters
0:07:10 and Olympic wrestlers, I lost 28 pounds in 18 hours,
0:07:17 weighed in at 165 pounds, and then hyper-hydrated back to 193 pounds.
0:07:22 Most people will assume this type of weight manipulation is impossible,
0:07:26 so I’ve provided sample photographs at 4hourblog.com.
0:07:32 Do not try this at home. I did it all under medical supervision.
0:07:38 It’s hard to fight someone from three weight classes above you, poor little guys.
0:07:42 Two. There was a technicality in the fine print.
0:07:48 If one combatant fell off the elevated platform three times in a single round,
0:07:54 his opponent won by default. I decided to use this technicality as my principal technique
0:08:00 and push people off. As you might imagine, this did not make the judges the happiest Chinese I’ve
0:08:07 ever seen. The result? I won all of my matches by technical knockout, TKO, and went home,
0:08:14 national champion. Something 99% of those with 5-10 years of experience had been unable to do.
0:08:19 But isn’t pushing people out of the ring pushing the boundaries of ethics?
0:08:24 Not at all. It’s no more than doing the uncommon within the rules.
0:08:30 The important distinction is that between official rules and self-imposed rules.
0:08:37 Consider the following example from the official website of the Olympic Movement, Olympic.org.
0:08:45 The 1968 Mexico City Olympics marked the international debut of Dick Fosbury and his
0:08:51 celebrated Fosbury flop, which would soon revolutionize high-jumping. At the time,
0:08:57 jumpers swung their outside foot up and over the bar, called the straddle,
0:08:59 much like a hurdle jump. It allowed you to land on your feet.
0:09:06 Fosbury’s technique began by racing up to the bar at great speed and taking off from his right,
0:09:13 or outside, foot. Then he twisted his body so that he went over the bar head first with his back
0:09:20 to the bar. While the coaches of the world shook their heads in disbelief, the Mexico City audience
0:09:25 was absolutely captivated by Fosbury and shouted “Ole!” as he cleared the bar.
0:09:33 Fosbury cleared every height through 2.22 meters without a miss, and then achieved a personal
0:09:41 record of 2.24 meters to win the gold medal. By 1980, 13 of the 16 Olympic finalists were
0:09:48 using the Fosbury flop. The weight cutting techniques and off-platform throwing I used
0:09:54 are now standard features of Sonshu competition. I didn’t cause it. I just foresaw it as inevitable,
0:10:00 as did others who tested this superior approach. Now, it’s par for the course.
0:10:07 Sports evolve when sacred cows are killed, when basic assumptions are tested.
0:10:15 The same is true in life and in lifestyles. Challenging the status quo versus being stupid.
0:10:21 Most people walk down the street on their legs. Does that mean I walk down the street on my hands?
0:10:28 Do I wear my underwear outside of my pants in the name of being different? Not usually, no.
0:10:34 Then again, walking on my legs and keeping my thong on the inside of work just fine thus far.
0:10:41 I don’t fix it if it isn’t broken. Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
0:10:47 If everyone is defining a problem or solving it one way and the results are sub-par,
0:10:53 this is the time to ask, “What if I did the opposite?” Don’t follow a model that doesn’t
0:10:57 work. If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.
0:11:05 When I was in data storage sales my first gig out of college, I realized that most cold calls
0:11:12 didn’t get to the intended person for one reason. Gatekeepers. If I simply made all my calls from
0:11:18 eight o’clock to eight thirty a.m. and six o’clock to six thirty p.m. for a total of one hour,
0:11:25 I was able to avoid secretaries and book more than twice as many meetings as the senior sales
0:11:32 executives who called from nine to five. In other words, I got twice the results for one eighth
0:11:39 the time. From Japan to Monaco, from globetrotting single mothers to multi-millionaire race car
0:11:46 drivers, the basic rules of successful NR are surprisingly uniform and predictably divergent
0:11:52 from what the rest of the world is doing. The following rules are the fundamental differentiators
0:12:00 to keep in mind throughout this audiobook. One. Retirement is worst-case scenario insurance.
0:12:06 Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge
0:12:13 against the absolute worst-case scenario, in this case becoming physically incapable of working
0:12:21 and needing a reservoir of capital to survive. Retirement as a goal or final redemption is
0:12:28 flawed for at least three solid reasons. A. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike
0:12:34 what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a non-starter.
0:12:42 Nothing can justify that sacrifice. B. Most people will never be able to retire and
0:12:47 maintain even a hot dogs for dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a
0:12:53 world where traditional retirement could span thirty years, and inflation lowers your purchasing
0:13:00 power two to four percent per year. The math doesn’t work. The golden years become lower
0:13:09 middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. C. If the math does work, that means
0:13:16 that you are one ambitious hard-working machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into
0:13:20 retirement you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes.
0:13:25 You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company,
0:13:31 kind of defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it? I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case.
0:13:39 I have maxed out 401Ks and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes, but don’t mistake retirement
0:13:48 for the goal. Two. Interest and energy are cyclical. If I offered you ten million dollars to work 24
0:13:54 hours a day for 15 years and then retire, would you do it? Of course not. You couldn’t. It is
0:14:02 unsustainable, just as what most define as a career, doing the same thing for eight plus hours per day
0:14:08 until you break down or have enough cash to permanently stop. How else can my 30-year-old
0:14:14 friends all look like a cross between Donald Trump and Joan Rivers? It’s horrendous, premature aging
0:14:22 fueled by triple bypass frappuccinos and impossible workloads. Alternating periods of activity and
0:14:30 rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all
0:14:38 wax and wane. Plan accordingly. The NR aims to distribute mini-retirements throughout life
0:14:45 instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool’s gold of retirement. By working only
0:14:51 when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect
0:14:58 example of having your cake and eating it too. Personally, I now aim for one month of overseas
0:15:04 relocation or high-intensity learning, tango, fighting, whatever, for every two months of work
0:15:15 projects. Three, less is not laziness. Doing less meaningless work so that you can focus on things
0:15:23 of greater personal importance is not laziness. This is hard for most to accept because our
0:15:30 culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity. Few people
0:15:36 choose to or are able to measure the results of their actions and thus measure their contribution
0:15:43 in time. More time equals more self-worth and more reinforcement from those above and around them.
0:15:50 The NR, despite fewer hours in the office, produce more meaningful results than the next dozen
0:16:01 non-NR combined. Let’s define laziness on you. To endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance
0:16:08 or others decide life for you or to amass a fortune while passing through life like a spectator
0:16:14 from an office window. The size of your bank account doesn’t change this, nor does the number
0:16:22 of hours you log in handling unimportant email or minutia. Focus on being productive instead of
0:16:32 busy. Four, the timing is never right. I once asked my mom how she decided when to have her
0:16:38 first child, little ol’ me. The answer was simple. It was something we wanted and we decided there
0:16:43 was no point in putting it off. The timing is never right to have a baby. And so it is.
0:16:49 For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks.
0:16:54 Waiting for a good time to quit your job, the stars will never align and the traffic
0:17:01 lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you,
0:17:07 but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either. Conditions are never perfect.
0:17:15 Some day is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are
0:17:21 just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it, eventually just do it and correct
0:17:31 course along the way. Five, ask for forgiveness, not permission. If it isn’t going to devastate
0:17:37 those around you, try it and then justify it. People, whether parents, partners or bosses,
0:17:42 deny things on an emotional basis that they can learn to accept after the fact.
0:17:48 If the potential damage is moderate or in any way reversible, don’t give people the chance to say
0:17:54 no. Most people are fast to stop you before you get started, but hesitant to get in the way
0:18:00 if you’re moving. Get good at being a troublemaker and saying sorry when you really screw up.
0:18:09 Six, emphasize strengths. Don’t fix weaknesses. Most people are good at a handful of things and
0:18:15 utterly miserable at most. I am great at product creation and marketing, but terrible at most
0:18:21 of the things that follow. My body is designed to lift heavy objects and throw them, and that’s it.
0:18:28 I ignore this for a long time. I tried swimming and looked like a drowning monkey. I tried basketball
0:18:35 and looked like a caveman. Then I became a fighter and took off. It is far more lucrative and fun
0:18:42 to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. The choice is
0:18:49 between multiplication of results using strengths or incremental improvement fixing weaknesses that
0:18:56 will at best become mediocre. Focus on better use of your best weapons instead of constant repair.
0:19:05 Seven, things in excess become their opposite. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.
0:19:12 In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite. Thus,
0:19:20 pacifists become militants, freedom fighters become tyrants, blessings become curses, help
0:19:28 becomes hindrance, more becomes less. Goldian Vandenbroek, edition from Less is More,
0:19:34 an anthology of ancient and modern voices raised in praise of simplicity in her traditions, 1996.
0:19:41 Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.
0:19:49 This is true of possessions and even time. Lifestyle design is thus not interested in
0:19:55 creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time
0:20:01 defines simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do.
0:20:11 Eight, money alone is not the solution. There is much to be said for the power of money as currency.
0:20:16 I’m a fan myself, but adding more of it just isn’t the answer as often as we’d like to think.
0:20:23 In part, it’s laziness. If only I had more money is the easiest way to postpone the intense
0:20:30 self-examination and decision-making necessary to create a life of enjoyment, now and not later.
0:20:38 By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently
0:20:44 disallow ourselves the time to do otherwise. John, I’d love to talk about the gaping void I
0:20:49 feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my
0:20:53 computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do. I’ve got at least three hours of
0:20:59 unimportant email to reply to before calling the prospects who said no yesterday, gotta run.
0:21:05 Busy yourself with the routine of the money wheel, pretend it’s the fix all,
0:21:11 and you artfully create a constant distraction that prevents you from seeing just how pointless it is.
0:21:18 Deep down, you know it’s all an illusion, but with everyone participating in the same game
0:21:22 of make-believe, it’s easy to forget. The problem is more than money.
0:21:30 9. Relative income is more important than absolute income.
0:21:36 Among dietitians and nutritionists, there is some debate over the value of a calorie.
0:21:45 Is a calorie a calorie, much like a rose is a rose? Is fat loss as simple as expending more
0:21:51 calories than you consume? Or is the source of those calories important? Based on work
0:21:58 with top athletes, I know the answer to be the latter. What about income? Is a dollar is a dollar
0:22:04 is a dollar? The new rich don’t think so? Let’s look at this like a fifth grade math problem.
0:22:08 Two hard-working chaps are headed toward each other,
0:22:14 chap A moving at 80 hours per week, and chap B moving at 10 hours per week.
0:22:20 They both make $50,000 per year. Who will be richer when they pass in the middle of the night?
0:22:27 If you said B, you would be correct, and this is the difference between absolute and relative income.
0:22:34 Absolute income is measured using one wholly and inalterable variable, the raw and
0:22:41 almighty dollar. Jane Doe makes $100,000 per year and is thus twice as rich as John Doe,
0:22:47 who makes $50,000 per year. Relative income uses two variables, the dollar
0:22:55 and time, usually hours. The whole per year concept is arbitrary and makes it easy to
0:23:05 trick yourself. Let’s look at the real trade. Jane Doe makes $100,000 per year, $2,000 for
0:23:13 each of 50 weeks per year and works 80 hours per week. Jane Doe thus makes $25 per hour.
0:23:22 John Doe makes $50,000 per year, $1,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, but works
0:23:32 10 hours per week and hence makes $100 per hour. In relative income, John is four times richer.
0:23:39 Of course, relative income has to add up to the minimum amount necessary to actualize your goals.
0:23:45 If I make $100 per hour but only work one hour per week, it’s going to be hard for me to run a
0:23:51 mock like a superstar. Assuming that the total absolute income is where it needs to be to live
0:23:58 my dreams, not an arbitrary point of comparison with the Joneses, relative income is the real
0:24:05 measurement of wealth for the new rich. The top new rich mavericks make at least $5,000 per hour.
0:24:11 Out of college, I started at about five. I’ll get you closer to the former.
0:24:22 10. Distress is bad. You stress is good. Unbeknownst to most fun-loving bipeds,
0:24:29 not all stress is bad. Indeed, the new rich don’t aim to eliminate all stress,
0:24:36 not in the least. There are two separate types of stress, each as different as euphoria and
0:24:44 its seldom mentioned opposite, dysphoria. Distress refers to harmful stimuli that make
0:24:51 you weaker, less confident, and less able. Destructive criticism, abusive bosses,
0:24:57 and smashing your face on a curb are examples of this. These are things we want to avoid.
0:25:02 You stress, on the other hand, is a word most of you have probably never heard.
0:25:09 You, a Greek prefix for healthy, is used in the same sense in the word euphoria.
0:25:17 Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires,
0:25:23 and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of you stress,
0:25:31 stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth. People who avoid all criticism fail.
0:25:38 It’s destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms. Similarly, there is no
0:25:45 progress without you stress, and the more you stress we can create or apply to our lives,
0:25:50 the sooner we can actualize our dreams. The trick is telling the two apart.
0:25:57 The new rich are equally aggressive in removing distress and finding you stress.
0:26:02 Q&A Questions and actions
0:26:10 1. How has being “realistic” or “responsible” kept you from the life you want?
0:26:19 2. How has doing what you “should” resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done
0:26:25 something else? 3. Look at what you’re currently doing and ask yourself.
0:26:29 What would happen if I did the opposite of the people around me?
0:26:36 What will I sacrifice if I continue on this track for 5, 10, or 20 years?
0:26:43 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:27:41 Drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.
0:27:50 Dodging bullets. Fear setting and escaping paralysis.
0:28:00 Many a false step was made by standing still. Fortune cookie. Named must your fear be before
0:28:05 banish it you can. Yoda from Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back.
0:28:15 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 20 feet and closing. Run! Run!
0:28:22 Hans didn’t speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough. Haul ass.
0:28:27 His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock and he drove his chest forward toward
0:28:34 3,000 feet of nothing. He held his breath on the final step and the panic drove him to near
0:28:40 unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges closing to a single pinpoint of light and then
0:28:49 he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field
0:28:54 an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the
0:29:01 paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountaintop and thousands of feet above the resplendent
0:29:08 green rainforest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana. Hans Keeling had seen the light.
0:29:16 That was Sunday. On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City,
0:29:21 Los Angeles’ posh corporate haven and promptly handed in his three-week notice.
0:29:30 For nearly five years he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread. I have to do this
0:29:36 for another forty to forty-five years? He had once slept under his desk at the office
0:29:42 after a punishing half-done project only to wake up and continue on at the next morning.
0:29:48 That same morning he had made himself a promise. Two more times and I’m out of here.
0:29:53 Strike number three came the day before he left for his Brazilian vacation.
0:30:01 We all make these promises to ourselves and Hans had done it before as well,
0:30:05 but things were now somehow different. He was different.
0:30:11 He had realized something while arcing in slow circles toward the earth.
0:30:18 Risks weren’t that scary once you took them. His colleagues told him what he expected to hear.
0:30:24 He was throwing it all away. He was an attorney on his way to the top. What the hell did he want?
0:30:29 Hans didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he had tasted it.
0:30:35 On the other hand he did know what bored him to tears and he was done with it.
0:30:42 No more passing days as the living dead. No more dinners where his colleagues compared cars,
0:30:49 riding on the sugar high of a new BMW purchase until someone bought a more expensive Mercedes.
0:30:55 It was over. Immediately a strange shift began.
0:31:02 Hans felt for the first time in a long time at peace with himself and what he was doing.
0:31:08 He had always been terrified of plane turbulence as if he might die with the best inside of him,
0:31:14 but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby. Strange indeed.
0:31:21 More than a year later he was still getting unsolicited job offers from law firms,
0:31:24 but by then had started NexusSurf.
0:31:32 NexusSurf.com, a premier surf adventure company based in the tropical paradise of Florianopolis,
0:31:39 Brazil. He had met his dream girl, a karaoke with caramel colored skin named Tatiana,
0:31:45 and spent most of his time relaxing under palm trees or treating clients to the best
0:31:50 times of their lives. Is this what he had been so afraid of?
0:31:57 These days he often sees his former self in the underjoyed and overwork professionals he takes
0:32:03 out on the waves, waiting for the swell the true emotions come out. God, I wish I could do what
0:32:11 you do. His reply is always the same. You can. The setting sun reflects off the surface of the
0:32:19 water, providing a zen-like setting for a message he knows is true. It’s not giving up
0:32:25 to put your current path on indefinite pause. He could pick up his law career exactly where
0:32:30 he left off if he wanted to, but that is the furthest thing from his mind.
0:32:36 As they paddle back to shore after an awesome session, his clients get ahold of themselves
0:32:42 and regain their composure. They set foot on shore, and reality sinks its fangs in.
0:32:49 I would, but I can’t really throw it all away. He has to laugh.
0:32:55 The Power of Pessimism Defining the Nightmare
0:33:02 Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
0:33:11 Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister. To do or not to do. To try or not to try.
0:33:17 Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not.
0:33:23 Uncertainty in the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows.
0:33:30 Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty. For years, I set goals, made
0:33:36 resolutions to change direction, and nothing came of either. I was just as insecure and scared as
0:33:43 the rest of the world. The simple solution came to me accidentally four years ago. At that time,
0:33:48 I had more money than I knew what to do with. I was making $70,000 or so per month,
0:33:56 and I was completely miserable. Worse than ever. I had no time and was working myself to death.
0:34:03 I had started my own company only to realize it would be nearly impossible to sell.
0:34:08 This turned out to be yet another self-imposed limitation and false construct.
0:34:16 Brainquicken was acquired by a private equity firm in 2009. The process is described on 4hourblog.com.
0:34:24 Oops, I felt trapped and stupid at the same time. I should be able to figure this out. I thought,
0:34:30 why am I such an idiot? Why can’t I make this work? Buckle up and stop being such an
0:34:37 insert expletive. What’s wrong with me? The truth was, nothing was wrong with me.
0:34:42 I hadn’t reached my limit. I’d reached the limit of my business model at the time.
0:34:50 It wasn’t the driver. It was the vehicle. Critical mistakes in its infancy would never
0:34:55 let me sell it. I could hire magic elves and connect my brain to a supercomputer.
0:35:02 It didn’t matter. My little baby had some serious birth defects. The question then became,
0:35:07 how do I free myself from this Frankenstein while making itself sustaining?
0:35:13 How do I pry myself from the tentacles of workaholism and the fear that it would fall to pieces
0:35:23 without my 15-hour days? How do I escape this self-made prison? A trip, I decided. A sabbatical
0:35:33 year around the world. So I took the trip, right? Well, I’ll get to that. First, I felt it prudent
0:35:39 to dance around with my shame, embarrassment, and anger for six months, all the while playing
0:35:46 an endless loop of reasons why my cop-out fantasy trip could never work. One of my more productive
0:35:54 periods, for sure. Then, one day, in my bliss of envisioning how bad my future suffering would be,
0:36:01 I hit upon a gem of an idea. It was surely a highlight of my “don’t happy be worry” phase.
0:36:09 Why don’t I decide exactly what my nightmare would be? The worst thing that could possibly
0:36:17 happen as a result of my trip. Well, my business could fail while I’m overseas, for sure. Probably
0:36:25 would. A legal warning letter would accidentally not get forwarded and I would get sued. My business
0:36:30 would be shut down and inventory would spoil on the shelves while I’m picking my toes in
0:36:37 solitary misery on some cold shore in Ireland. Crying in the rain, I imagine. My bank account
0:36:44 would crater by 80% and certainly my car and motorcycle in storage would be stolen. I suppose
0:36:49 someone would probably spit on my head from a high-rise balcony while I’m feeding food scraps
0:36:56 to a stray dog, which would then spook and bite me squarely on the face. God, life is a cruel hard
0:37:06 bitch. Conquering fear equals defining fear. Set aside a certain number of days during which you
0:37:13 shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare with coarse and rough dress saying to yourself
0:37:23 the while, “Is this the condition that I feared?” Seneca. Then a funny thing happened. In my undying
0:37:30 quest to make myself miserable, I accidentally began to backpedal. As soon as I cut through the
0:37:38 vague unease and ambiguous anxiety by defining my nightmare, the worst-case scenario, I wasn’t
0:37:45 as worried about taking a trip. Suddenly I started thinking of simple steps I could take to salvage
0:37:52 my remaining resources and get back on track if all hell struck at once. I could always take a
0:37:58 temporary bartending job to pay the rent if I had to. I could sell some furniture and cut back on
0:38:03 eating out. I could steal lunch money from the kindergartners who passed by my apartment
0:38:09 every morning. The options were many. I realized it wouldn’t be that hard to get back to where I was
0:38:17 a little on survive. None of these things would be fatal, not even close, mere panty pinches on
0:38:24 the journey of life. I realized that on a scale of one to ten, one being nothing and ten being
0:38:32 permanently life-changing, my so-called worst-case scenario might have a temporary impact of three
0:38:39 or four. I believe this is true of most people, and most would be, “Holy shit, my life is over
0:38:46 disasters!” Keep in mind that this is the one in a million disaster nightmare. On the other hand,
0:38:52 if I realized my best-case scenario, or even a probable-case scenario, it would easily have a
0:39:00 permanent nine or ten positive life-changing effect. In other words, I was risking an unlikely
0:39:07 and temporary three or four for a probable and permanent nine or ten, and I could easily recover
0:39:13 my baseline workaholic prison with a bit of extra work if I wanted to. This all equated to a
0:39:21 significant realization. There was practically no risk, only huge life-changing upside potential,
0:39:26 and I could resume my previous course without any more effort than I was already putting forth.
0:39:32 That is when I made the decision to take the trip and bought a one-way ticket to Europe.
0:39:39 I started planning my adventures and eliminating my physical and psychological baggage. None of my
0:39:47 disasters came to pass, and my life has been a near fairytale since. The business did better than ever,
0:39:53 and I practically forgot about it as it financed my travels around the world in style for fifteen
0:40:03 months. Uncovering fear disguised as optimism. There’s no difference between a pessimist who says,
0:40:08 “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t
0:40:14 bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.
0:40:18 Ivan Shenard, founder of Patagonia.
0:40:26 Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don’t call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is
0:40:32 quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else,
0:40:39 optimistic denial. Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will
0:40:47 improve with time or increases in income. This seems valid and is attempting hallucination when
0:40:55 a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell. Pure hell forces action, but anything less
0:41:01 can be endured with enough clever rationalization. Do you really think it will improve, or is it
0:41:08 wishful thinking and an excuse for inaction? If you were confident in improvement, would you
0:41:17 really be questioning things so? Generally not. This is fear of the unknown disguised as optimism.
0:41:23 Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago?
0:41:32 If not, things will not improve by themselves. If you are kidding yourself, it is time to stop
0:41:40 and plan for a jump. Barring any James Dean ending, your life is going to be long.
0:41:48 Nine to five for your working lifetime of 40 to 50 years is a long-ass time if the rescue doesn’t
0:41:58 come. About 500 months of solid work. How many do you have to go? It’s probably time to cut your losses.
0:42:06 Someone call the Mater D. You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money
0:42:13 plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the
0:42:22 reward of those who have no fear of discomfort. Jean Cocteau. French poet, novelist, boxing manager,
0:42:27 and filmmaker whose collaborations were the inspiration for the term surrealism.
0:42:35 Sometimes timing is perfect. There are hundreds of cars circling a parking lot and someone pulls
0:42:41 out of a spot 10 feet from the entrance just as you reach his or her bumper. Another Christmas
0:42:48 miracle. Other times the timing could be better. The phone rings during sex and seems to ring for
0:42:54 a half hour. The UPS guy shows up 10 minutes later. Bad timing can spoil the fun.
0:43:03 Jean-Marc Hachet landed in West Africa as a volunteer with high hopes of lending a helping hand.
0:43:09 In that sense, his timing was great. He arrived in Ghana in the early 1980s in the middle of a
0:43:16 coup d’etat at the peak of hyperinflation and just in time for the worst drought in a decade.
0:43:21 For these same reasons, some people would consider his timing quite poor
0:43:28 from a more selfish survival standpoint. He had also missed the memo. The national menu had changed
0:43:34 and they were out of luxuries like bread and clean water. He would be surviving for four
0:43:41 months on a slush like concoction of cornmeal and spinach. Not what most of us would order at the
0:43:50 movie theater. Wow, I can survive. Jean-Marc had passed the point of no return, but it didn’t
0:43:56 matter. After two weeks of adjusting to the breakfast, lunch and dinner, mash alagana,
0:44:03 he had no desire to escape. The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real
0:44:09 necessities and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming
0:44:18 epiphany he’d ever experienced. The worst really wasn’t that bad. To enjoy life you don’t need
0:44:24 fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just
0:44:31 aren’t as serious as you make them out to be. Now, 48, Jean-Marc lives in a nice home in Ontario,
0:44:37 but could live without it. He has cash but could fall into poverty tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter.
0:44:44 Some of his fondest memories still include nothing but friends and gruel. He is dedicated to
0:44:49 creating special moments for himself and his family and is utterly unconcerned with retirement.
0:44:54 He’s already lived 20 years of partial retirement in perfect health.
0:45:00 Don’t save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.
0:45:06 Q&A Questions and Actions
0:45:13 I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened.
0:45:15 Mark Twain
0:45:22 If you are nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown,
0:45:29 here is your antidote. Write down your answers and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove
0:45:35 as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit.
0:45:39 Aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer.
0:45:48 1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you were considering.
0:45:56 What doubts, fears and what ifs pop up as you consider the big changes you can or need to make?
0:46:01 Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life?
0:46:06 What would be the permanent impact if any on a scale of one to ten?
0:46:13 Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?
0:46:21 2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing,
0:46:27 even if temporarily? Chances are it’s easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under
0:46:36 control? 3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable
0:46:43 scenarios? Now that you’ve defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive
0:46:51 outcomes, whether internal, confident, self-esteem, etc., or external? What would the impact of these
0:46:57 more likely outcomes be on a scale of one to ten? How likely is it that you could produce at least
0:47:03 a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off?
0:47:10 If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?
0:47:15 Imagine this scenario and run through questions one through three.
0:47:21 If you quit your job to test other options, how could you later get back on the same career track
0:47:29 if you absolutely had to? 5. What are you putting off out of fear?
0:47:39 Usually what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation,
0:47:44 whatever the action might be, it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing
0:47:51 what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might
0:47:59 consider tattooing on your forehead. What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.
0:48:05 As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of
0:48:13 uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that
0:48:19 you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous business people
0:48:28 for advice. 6. What is it costing you, financially, emotionally, and physically, to postpone action?
0:48:34 Don’t only evaluate the potential downside of action, it is equally important to measure
0:48:40 the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don’t pursue those things that excite you,
0:48:47 where will you be in one year? Five years and ten years. How will you feel having allowed
0:48:53 circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life
0:49:01 to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you? If you telescope out ten years and know with 100%
0:49:08 certainty that it is a path of disappointment and regret, and if we define risk as the likelihood
0:49:13 of an irreversible negative outcome, inaction is the greatest risk of all.
0:49:22 7. What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the previously rejected
0:49:28 concept of good timing, the answer is simple. You’re afraid. Just like the rest of the world.
0:49:35 Measure the cost of inaction. Realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps
0:49:41 and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so. Action.
0:49:51 4. System reset. Being unreasonable and unambiguous.
0:49:55 “Would you tell me please which way are to go from here?”
0:49:59 “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat.
0:50:06 “I don’t much care where,” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat.
0:50:09 “Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.”
0:50:17 The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
0:50:25 the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw,
0:50:32 Maxims for Revolutionists. Spring 2005, Princeton, New Jersey.
0:50:38 I had to bribe them. “What other choice did I have?”
0:50:43 They formed a circle around me and while the names differed, the question was one and the same.
0:50:47 “What’s the challenge?” “All eyes were on me.”
0:50:54 My lecture at Princeton University had just ended with excitement and enthusiasm. At the same time,
0:50:59 I knew that most students would go out and promptly do the opposite of what I preached.
0:51:05 Most of them would be putting in 80-hour weeks as high-paid coffee fetches unless I showed that
0:51:10 the principles from class could actually be applied. Hence, the challenge.
0:51:17 I was offering a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world to anyone who could complete an
0:51:24 undefined challenge in the most impressive fashion possible. Results plus style. I told them to meet
0:51:32 me after class if interested and here they were, nearly 20 out of 60 students. The task was designed
0:51:36 to test their comfort zones while forcing them to use some of the tactics I teach.
0:51:43 It was simplicity itself. Contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people. J. Lowe,
0:51:49 Bill Clinton, J. D. Salinger. I don’t care and get at least one to reply to three questions.
0:51:55 Of 20 students all frothing at the mouth to win a free spin across the globe,
0:52:01 how many completed the challenge? Exactly none. Not a one.
0:52:09 There were many excuses. It’s not that easy to get someone to. I have a big paper due and
0:52:17 I would love to, but there’s no way I can. There was but one real reason, however,
0:52:22 repeated over and over again in different words. It was a difficult challenge,
0:52:27 perhaps impossible and the other students would outdo them. Since all of them overestimated
0:52:33 the competition, no one even showed up. According to the rules I had set, if someone had sent me
0:52:39 no more than an illegible one paragraph response, I would have been obligated to give them the prize.
0:52:47 This result both fascinated and depressed me. The following year the outcome was quite different.
0:52:55 I told the above cautionary tale and six out of 17 finished the challenge in less than 48 hours.
0:53:02 Was the second class better? No. In fact, there were more capable students in the first class,
0:53:07 but they did. Nothing. Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger.
0:53:11 The second group just embraced what I told them before they started, which was
0:53:19 doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic. From contacting billionaires
0:53:25 to rubbing elbows with celebrities, the second group of students did both. It’s as easy as
0:53:32 believing it can be done. It’s lonely at the top. 99% of people in the world are convinced they are
0:53:38 incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is
0:53:46 thus fiercest for realistic goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy consuming.
0:53:51 It is easier to raise one million dollars than it is one hundred thousand dollars.
0:53:56 It is easier to pick up the one perfect ten in the bar than the five eights.
0:54:06 If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is two. Do not overestimate the competition
0:54:13 and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are
0:54:20 easier to achieve for yet another reason. Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion
0:54:25 that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go
0:54:32 along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level,
0:54:37 are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem at which
0:54:44 points you throw in the towel. If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort.
0:54:49 I’ll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands,
0:54:53 but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio.
0:55:00 If I choose the latter because it is realistic, I won’t have the enthusiasm to jump even the
0:55:07 smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal clear Greek waters and delicious wine
0:55:12 on the brain, I’m prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their
0:55:19 difficulty of achievement on a scale of one to ten appears to be a ten and a two, respectively,
0:55:25 Columbus is more likely to fall through. The fishing is best where the fewest go,
0:55:30 and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs
0:55:36 while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There’s just less competition for bigger goals.
0:55:40 Doing big things begins with asking for them properly.
0:55:49 What do you want? A better question, first of all. Most people will never know what they want.
0:55:54 I don’t know what I want. If you ask me what I want to do in the next five months for language
0:56:01 learning, on the other hand, I do know. It’s a matter of specificity. What do you want is too
0:56:09 imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Forget about it. What are your goals
0:56:15 is similarly fated for confusion and guesswork. To rephrase the question, we need to take a
0:56:21 step back and look at the bigger picture. Let’s assume we have ten goals and we achieve them.
0:56:24 What is the desired outcome that makes all the effort worthwhile?
0:56:30 The most common response is what I also would have suggested five years ago. Happiness.
0:56:36 I no longer believe this is a good answer. Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine
0:56:41 and has become ambiguous through overuse. There is a more precise alternative that
0:56:49 reflects what I believe the actual objective is. Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness?
0:56:56 Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness.
0:57:00 Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this.
0:57:06 The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is, here’s the clincher,
0:57:13 boredom. Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness,
0:57:20 and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest
0:57:26 you follow your passion or your bliss, I propose that they are in fact referring to the same
0:57:35 singular concept. Excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn’t
0:57:46 what do I want or what are my goals, but what would excite me? Adult onset ADD. Adventure deficit
0:57:54 disorder. Somewhere between college graduation and your second job, a chorus enters your internal
0:58:01 dialogue. Be realistic and stop pretending life isn’t like the movies. If you’re five years old
0:58:05 and say you want to be an astronaut, your parents tell you that you can be anything you want to be.
0:58:13 It’s harmless like telling a child that Seneca Laws exists. If you’re 25 and announce you want
0:58:21 to start a new circus, the response is different. Be realistic. Become a lawyer, or an accountant,
0:58:28 or a doctor. Have babies and raise them to repeat the cycle. If you do manage to ignore
0:58:34 the doubters and start your own business, for example, ADD doesn’t disappear. It just takes
0:58:42 a different form. When I started BrainQuicken LLC in 2001, it was with a clear goal in mind,
0:58:47 make $1,000 per day whether I was banging my head on a laptop or cutting my toenails on the beach.
0:58:54 It was to be an automated source of cash flow. If you look at my chronology, it is obvious that
0:59:03 this didn’t happen until a meltdown forced it, despite the requisite income. Why? The goal wasn’t
0:59:09 specific enough. I hadn’t defined alternate activities that would replace the initial workload.
0:59:16 Therefore, I just continued working. Even though there was no financial need, I needed to feel
0:59:23 productive and had no other vehicles. This is how most people work until death. I’ll just work until
0:59:30 I have X dollars and then do what I want. If you don’t define the what I want alternate activities,
0:59:36 the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void.
0:59:42 This is when both employees and entrepreneurs become fat men in red BMWs.
0:59:46 The Fat Man in the Red BMW Convertible
0:59:53 There have been several points in my life. Among them, just before I was fired from TrueSan and
0:59:59 just before I escaped the US to avoid taking an Uzi into McDonald’s, at which I saw my future as
1:00:06 another fat man in a midlife crisis BMW. I simply looked at those who were 15 to 20 years ahead
1:00:11 of me on the same track, whether a director of sales or an entrepreneur in the same industry,
1:00:19 and it scared the hell out of me. It was such an acute phobia and such a perfect metaphor for the
1:00:25 sum of all fears that it became a pattern interrupt between myself and fellow lifestyle
1:00:32 designer and entrepreneur Douglas Price. Doug and I traveled parallel paths for nearly five years,
1:00:38 facing the same challenges and self-doubt, and thus keeping a close psychological eye on each
1:00:45 other. Our down periods seemed to alternate, making us a good team. Whenever one of us began to set
1:00:52 our sights lower, lose faith, or accept reality, the other would chime in via phone or email like
1:00:57 an AA sponsor. “Due to you turning into the bald fat man in the red BMW convertible?”
1:01:04 The prospect was terrifying enough that we always got our asses and priorities back on track
1:01:10 immediately. The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal
1:01:19 boredom as a tolerable status quo. Remember, boredom is the enemy, not some abstract failure.
1:01:29 Correcting course. Get unrealistic. There is a process that I have used,
1:01:35 and still use, to reignite life or correct course when the fat man in the BMW rears his ugly head.
1:01:42 In some form or another, it is the same process used by the most impressive N.R. I have met
1:01:50 around the world. Dreamlining. Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most
1:01:57 would consider dreams. It is much like goal setting, but differs in several fundamental
1:02:07 respects. One, the goals shift from ambiguous wants to defined steps. Two, the goals have to be
1:02:14 unrealistic to be effective. Three, it focuses on activities that will fill the vacuum created when
1:02:22 work is removed. Living, like a millionaire, requires doing interesting things and not just
1:02:26 owning enviable things. Now it’s your turn to think big.
1:02:37 How to get George Bush Sr. or the CEO of Google on the phone. The article below, titled “Fail
1:02:43 Better” and written by Adam Gotzfeld, explores how I teach Princeton students to connect with
1:02:50 luminary-level business mentors and celebrities of various types. I’ve edited it for length in a
1:02:56 few places. People are fond of using the “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” adage as an
1:03:04 excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense. Here’s
1:03:14 how normal people build supernormal networks. “Fail Better” by Adam Gotzfeld. Most Princeton
1:03:20 students love to procrastinate in writing their Dean’s Date term papers. Ryan Maranen,
1:03:26 07 from Los Angeles was no exception, but while the majority of undergraduates fill their time by
1:03:33 updating their Facebook profiles or watching videos on YouTube, Maranen was discussing Soto Zen
1:03:38 Buddhism via email with Randy Commissar, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner
1:03:45 Perkins Caulfield & Buyers, and asking Google CEO Eric Schmidt via email when he had been happiest
1:03:52 in his life. Schmidt’s answer? Tomorrow. Prior to his email, Maranen had never contacted Commissar.
1:03:58 He had met Schmidt, a Princeton University trustee, only briefly at an Academic Affairs meeting of
1:04:05 the trustees in November. A self-described, naturally shy kid, Maranen said he would never
1:04:11 have dared to randomly email two of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley if it weren’t for
1:04:17 Tim Ferris, who offered a guest lecture in Professor Ed Zhao’s high-tech entrepreneurship class.
1:04:24 Ferris challenged Maranen and his fellow seniors to contact high-profile celebrities and CEOs
1:04:30 and get their answers to questions they have always wanted to ask. For extra incentive,
1:04:34 Ferris promised the student who could contact the most hard-to-reach name and ask
1:04:39 the most intriguing question a round-trip plane ticket anywhere in the world.
1:04:44 “I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re
1:04:49 willing to have. I felt that if I could help students overcome the fear of rejection with
1:04:56 cold calling and cold email, it would serve them forever,” Ferris said. “It’s easy to sell yourself
1:05:02 short, but when you see classmates getting responses from people like former President George Bush,
1:05:09 the CEOs of Disney, Comcast, Google, and HP, and dozens of other impossible-to-reach people,
1:05:14 it forces you to reconsider your self-set limitations.” Ferris lectures to the students of
1:05:20 high-tech entrepreneurship each semester about creating a startup and designing the ideal
1:05:27 lifestyle. “I participate in this contest every day,” said Ferris. “I do what I always do,
1:05:32 find a personal email if possible, often through their little-known personal blogs,
1:05:37 send a two- to three-paragraph email which explains that I am familiar with their work,
1:05:42 and ask one simple-to-answer-but-thought-provoking question in that email related to their work
1:05:49 or life philosophies. The goal is to start a dialogue so they take the time to answer future
1:05:56 emails, not to ask for help. That can only come after at least three or four genuine email exchanges.”
1:06:02 With textbook execution of the Tim Ferris technique, as he put it,
1:06:08 Marinon was able to strike up a bond with Comisar. In his initial email,
1:06:12 he talked about reading one of Comisar’s Harvard Business Review articles and
1:06:16 feeling inspired to ask him, “When were you happiest in your life?”
1:06:22 After Comisar replied with references to Tibetan Buddhism, Marinon responded,
1:06:27 “Just as words are inadequate to explain true happiness,
1:06:32 so too are words inadequate to express my thanks.” His email included his personal
1:06:38 translation of a French poem by Taisen Deshimaru, the former European head of Sotozen.
1:06:44 An email relationship was formed, and Comisar even emailed Marinon a few days later,
1:06:47 with a link to a New York Times article on happiness.
1:06:53 Contacting Schmidt proved more challenging. For Marinon, the toughest part was getting
1:06:59 Schmidt’s personal email address. He emailed a Princeton dean asking for it, no response.
1:07:03 Two weeks later, he emailed the same dean again,
1:07:07 defending his request by reminding her that he had previously met Schmidt.
1:07:14 The dean said no, but Marinon refused to give up. He emailed her a third time.
1:07:17 “Have you ever made an exception?” he asked.
1:07:21 The dean finally gave in, he said, and provided him with Schmidt’s email.
1:07:27 “I know some of my classmates pursued the alternative scattershot technique with some
1:07:31 success, but that’s not my bag,” Marinon said, explaining his perseverance.
1:07:37 “I deal with rejection by persisting, not by taking my business elsewhere.
1:07:41 My maxim comes from Samuel Beckett, a personal hero of mine.
1:07:47 Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
1:07:53 You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage
1:08:00 to repeatedly fail better. Nathan Kaplan, another participant in the contest,
1:08:05 was most proud of the way that he was able to contact former Newark mayor Sharp James,
1:08:09 because James had made a campaign contribution to Al Sharpton,
1:08:16 the website fundrace.org listed James’s home address. Kaplan then input James’s address
1:08:22 into an online search-by-address phone directory through which he received the former mayor’s
1:08:28 phone number. Kaplan left a message for James, and a few days later finally got to ask him about
1:08:33 childhood education. Ferris is proud of the effort students have put into his contest.
1:08:38 “Most people can do absolutely awe-inspiring things,” he says.
1:08:45 “Sometimes they just need a little nudge.” Q&A Questions and Actions
1:08:51 The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
1:08:55 Viktor Frankl, Auschwitz survivor and founder of logotherapy,
1:09:03 man’s search for meaning. “Life is too short to be small,” Benjamin Disraeli.
1:09:11 Dreamlining will be fun, and it will be hard. The harder it is, the more you need it.
1:09:18 To save time, I recommend using the automatic calculators and forms at 4hourblog.com.
1:09:28 1. What would you do if there were no way you could fail, if you were 10 times smarter than
1:09:35 the rest of the world? Create two timelines, six months and 12 months, and list up to five
1:09:42 things you dream of having, including but not limited to material wants, house, car, clothing,
1:09:52 etc. Being, be a great cook, be fluent in Chinese, etc., and doing, visiting Thailand, tracing your
1:09:59 roots overseas, racing ostriches, etc., in that order. If you have difficulty identifying what you
1:10:06 want in some categories, as most will, consider what you hate or fear in each and write down the
1:10:12 opposite. Do not limit yourself and do not concern yourself with how these things will
1:10:18 be accomplished. For now, it’s unimportant. This is an exercise in reversing repression.
1:10:25 Be sure not to judge or fool yourself. If you really want a Ferrari, don’t put down solving
1:10:32 world hunger out of guilt. For some, the dream will be fame. For others, fortune or prestige.
1:10:38 All people have their vices and insecurities. If something will improve your feeling of self-worth,
1:10:44 put it down. I have a racing motorcycle, and quite apart from the fact that I love speed,
1:10:49 it just makes me feel like a cool dude. There’s nothing wrong with that. Put it all down.
1:10:57 Two. Drawing a blank? For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people
1:11:02 have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined “dreams” they’re being held from.
1:11:09 This is particularly true with the “doing” category. In that case, consider these questions.
1:11:14 A. What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank?
1:11:20 B. What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day?
1:11:29 Don’t rush. Think about it for a few minutes. If still blocked, fill in the five “doing” spots
1:11:36 with the following. One place to visit. One thing to do before you die. A memory of a lifetime.
1:11:44 One thing to do daily. One thing to do weekly. One thing you’ve always wanted to learn.
1:11:54 Three. What does being entail doing? Convert each being into a “doing” to make it actionable.
1:12:00 Identify an action that would characterize this state of being or a task that would mean you
1:12:06 had achieved it. People find it easier to brainstorm “being” first. But this column
1:12:13 is just a temporary holding spot for “doing” actions. Here are a few examples. Great cook
1:12:20 goes in to make Christmas dinner without help. Fluent in Chinese goes in to have a five-minute
1:12:28 conversation with a Chinese coworker. Four. What are the four “dreams” that would change it all?
1:12:36 Using the six-month timeline, star or otherwise highlight the four most exciting
1:12:43 and/or important dreams from all columns. Repeat the process with the 12-month timeline if desired.
1:12:50 Five. Determine the cost of these dreams and calculate your target monthly income,
1:12:57 TMI for both timelines. If financeable, what is the cost per month for each of the four dreams?
1:13:04 Rent, mortgage, payment plan, installments, etc. Start thinking of income and expense in terms of
1:13:11 monthly cash flow, dollars in and dollars out, instead of grand totals. Things often cost much,
1:13:18 much less than expected. For example, a Lamborghini Gallardo Spider, fresh off the showroom floor at
1:13:29 $260,000, can be had for $2,897.80 per month. I found my personal favorite, an Aston Martin DB9
1:13:37 with 1,000 miles on it, through eBay for $136,000, $2,003.10 per month.
1:13:43 How about a round-the-world trip, Los Angeles to Tokyo to Singapore
1:13:50 to Bangkok to Delhi or Bombay to London to Frankfurt to Los Angeles for $1,399?
1:13:57 For some of these costs, the tools and tricks at the end of Chapter 14 will help.
1:14:05 Last, calculate your target monthly income, TMI for realizing these dreamlines.
1:14:13 This is how to do it. First, total each of the columns A, B and C counting only the four selected
1:14:20 dreams. Some of these column totals could be zero, which is fine. Next, add your total monthly
1:14:29 expenses times 1.3. The 1.3 represents your expenses plus a 30% buffer for safety or savings.
1:14:35 This grand total is your TMI and the target to keep in mind for the rest of the audiobook.
1:14:44 I like to further divide this TMI by 30 to get my TDI, target daily income. I find it easier to work
1:14:51 with a daily goal. Online calculators on our companion site do all the work for you and make
1:14:58 this step a cinch. Chances are that the figure is lower than expected and it often decreases
1:15:05 over time as you trade more and more having for once in a lifetime doing. Mobility encourages
1:15:12 this trend. Even if the total is intimidating, don’t fret in the least. I have helped students get to
1:15:21 more than $10,000 per month in extra income within three months. Dreamline math, another good option.
1:15:27 There could be a different way of handling monthly and one-time goals. I’ll use your example of an
1:15:32 Aston Martin’s monthly payment, a personal assistance monthly payment and a trip to the Croatian
1:15:39 coast. While the first two should certainly be totaled and included in your target monthly income,
1:15:43 the trip is something that should be divided by the number of months between now and the
1:15:51 Dreamline’s total time. Thus, if you had a six-month Dreamline, Aston Martin equals 2003 per month.
1:15:57 Personal assistant equals 400 per month. Croatian trip equals 934 total
1:16:05 and thus 934 divided by six per month. Right now in the book and in the spreadsheet we have
1:16:16 2003 plus 400 plus 934 times 1.3 monthly expenses equals target monthly income or TMI.
1:16:25 But I think it should be 2003 plus 400 plus 934 divided by six times 1.3 monthly expenses equals
1:16:35 TMI or more generally monthly goals plus one-time goals divided by total months times 1.3 monthly
1:16:47 expenses equals TMI. Jared, president, SET Consulting. Six. Determine three steps for each of the four
1:16:54 dreams in just the six-month timeline and take the first step now. I’m not a big believer in
1:17:00 long-term planning and far-off goals. In fact, I generally set three-month and six-month Dreamlines.
1:17:06 The variables change too much and in the future distance becomes an excuse for postponing action.
1:17:13 The objective of this exercise isn’t, therefore, to outline every step from start to finish,
1:17:22 but to define the end goal, the required vehicle to achieve them, TMI, TDI, and build momentum with
1:17:28 critical first steps. From that point, it’s a matter of freeing time and generating the TMI,
1:17:34 which the following chapters cover. First, let’s focus on those critical first steps.
1:17:41 Define three steps for each dream that will get you closer to its actualization. Set actions.
1:17:48 Simple, well-defined actions for now, tomorrow, complete before 11 a.m., and the day after,
1:17:55 again, completed before 11 a.m. Once you have three steps for each of the four goals,
1:18:02 complete the three actions in the now column. Do it now. Each should be simple enough to do
1:18:08 in five minutes or less. If not, ratchet it down. If it’s the middle of the night and you
1:18:14 can’t call someone, do something else now, such as send an email and set the call for first thing
1:18:21 tomorrow. If the next stage is some form of research, get in touch with someone who knows
1:18:27 the answer instead of spending too much time in books or online, which can turn into paralysis
1:18:34 by analysis. The best first step, the one I recommend, is finding someone who’s done it
1:18:40 and ask for advice on how to do the same. It’s not hard. Other options include setting a meeting
1:18:46 or phone call with a trainer, mentor, or salesperson to build momentum. Can you schedule a private
1:18:52 class or a commitment that you’ll feel bad about canceling? Use guilt to your advantage.
1:18:59 Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now.
1:19:08 Comfort challenge. The most important actions are never comfortable. Fortunately,
1:19:14 it is possible to condition yourself to discomfort and overcome it. I’ve trained myself to propose
1:19:21 solutions instead of ask for them, to elicit desired responses instead of react,
1:19:26 and to be assertive without burning bridges. To have an uncommon lifestyle,
1:19:32 you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others.
1:19:39 From this chapter forward, I’ll take you through progressively more uncomfortable exercises,
1:19:45 simple and small. Some of the exercises will appear deceptively easy and even irrelevant,
1:19:51 such as the next, until you try them. Look at it as a game and expect some butterflies and sweat.
1:19:58 That’s the whole point. For most of these exercises, the duration is two days. Mark the
1:20:03 exercise of the day on your calendar so you don’t forget, and don’t attempt more than one comfort
1:20:10 challenge at a time. Remember, there is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort
1:20:17 and getting what you want. Here we go. Learn to eye gaze. Two days.
1:20:25 My friend Michael Ellsberg invented a singles event called eye gazing. It is similar to speed
1:20:32 dating but different in one fundamental respect. No speaking is permitted. It involves gazing
1:20:39 into the eyes of each partner for three minutes at a time. If you go to such an event, it becomes
1:20:45 clear how uncomfortable most people are doing this. For the next two days, practice gazing into
1:20:50 the eyes of others, whether people you pass on the street or conversational partners,
1:20:57 until they break contact. Hints. One. Focus on one eye and be sure to blink
1:21:05 occasionally so you don’t look like a psychopath or get your ass kicked. Two. In conversation,
1:21:11 maintain eye contact when you are speaking. It’s easy to do while listening. Three. Practice with
1:21:16 people bigger or more confident than yourself. If a passerby asks you what the hell you’re
1:21:21 staring at, just smile and respond. Sorry about that. I thought you were an old friend of mine.
1:21:28 Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off and that is Five Bullet Friday.
1:21:32 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun
1:21:37 before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter,
1:21:43 my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is
1:21:48 basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found
1:21:53 or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
1:21:59 It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,
1:22:04 all sorts of tech tricks and so on. They get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast
1:22:11 guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share
1:22:17 them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before
1:22:22 you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you’d like to try it out, just go to
1:22:28 tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and you’ll
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1:24:45 (whooshing)
1:24:48 (audience cheering)